Fortune's Fool
by Laurelin the Pale
Summary: Two years later, Mick finally finds Josef hiding out in Alaska, but there isn't time for a pleasant reunion. Beth is missing and Josef is the only one who can find her. Josef/Beth, Mick/Beth/Josef. Sequel to "Some Women Like That".
1. Chapter 1

Mick pulled the rented SUV to a stop in front of a run down building glistening with neon signs advertising the various beers served within

Moonlight and all of its characters do not belong to me. They are solely the property of WB and Silver Pictures. This story is just a figment of my imagination.

For all of you that wondered what happened to Josef at the end of "Some Women Like That", this story is for you. Please read and review. – Laurelin

Mick stepped off the US Postal Service boat, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and thanked the captain, handing over a generous tip for the unscheduled midnight voyage. He followed the captain's directions and came to a stop in front of a run down building glistening with neon signs advertising the various beers served within. The tin roof looked a hundred years old, and he was surprised the place was still standing from the looks of it, all covered in snow and rust. But Tom's Bar was the only business in this god-forsaken Alaskan town that was still open at this late hour, and Mick was hoping that someone inside would know where Josef was. The few customers inside looked up with curiosity when the cold air from outside rushed in with the obvious outsider. It wasn't often that they had newcomers to the town in the heart of winter, Mick guessed. Trying to be nonchalant, Mick smiled briefly and went to the bar, handing over a twenty. There was unfortunately no telltale trace of vampire decay in the air.

"Whiskey please, neat." The bartender took his money and handed over the shot glass.

"If you're looking for a job, mister, the only boat hiring right now is the Northern Star. She's at pier 3, put in for repairs."

"Thanks," Mick replied, trying to be tactful in a situation in which he had exactly zero experience, "but I'm not actually here about a job. I'm looking for an old friend of mine. I heard he came here sometime in the last two years. Maybe you've seen him?" Mick held out Josef's stock photo from the Kostan Industries press kit.

The bartender stared at the picture for a long moment before there was a flash of recognition that he instantly tried to cover, but Mick didn't fail to notice.

"No, never seen him. Are you with the cops?" the man, who he guessed was the namesake of the bar, said with an air of mistrust.

"No, I'm not with the cops, the IRS, or any other government agency. Like I said, he was my best friend, and I haven't heard from him in a while. His sister went missing two weeks ago and none of his family members could get in touch with him… they wanted him to know, to see if there's any chance she might have come here on her own, or if he'd heard from her in any way. Please, I'm begging you." Mick didn't have to reach too hard to look desperate. Being truly desperate made it look easy.

"What's your name, son?" Tom asked, still cautious.

"Mick St. John, sir." Mick hadn't been called "son" since the War, and he was feeling his age more than ever right now.

Tom kept a close eye on Mick, who was sipping his drink uneasily. He could feel the eyes of the other three patrons on his back, and they weren't friendly.

"Well, Mick St. John, there are no new women in town, believe you me, or we'd all know about it. We don't get many visitors to these parts."

"I understand, sir. Her family isn't sure if she ran off, or if something worse happened to her. Please, I need to talk to him, see if he's heard from her, but I couldn't find a phone number for him. So I came up here myself." Mick wanted this to be a peaceful exchange, but it was looking more and more like he was going to have to follow Tom home and convince him in some other way.

With a sigh, Tom grabbed his parka and told the other patrons to get out. "If I find out you are anything but what you say you are, their will be hell to pay. Joe is the best mechanic we have, and I won't see him harassed by the likes of you. Do you understand me, son?"

"Yes, sir."

After the door was locked behind them, Tom lead him down towards the ships moored in the distance. Mick remembered to close his coat around himself and pretend to be cold for the human's benefit, but he had to admit that a midwinter's night here was like living in a giant freezer, and it certainly held consideralbe vampire appeal. But it wouldn't appeal to the Josef that he had known for fifty years. This was literally the end of the earth, the last place Mick would have ever thought to look for him, which he had to admit was probably why he hadn't been able to find Josef for nearly two years. He had trouble seeing his hedonistic friend blending in here, but Josef seemed to have garnered the respect of at least one bartender in this town, which was interesting in and of itself.

Mick followed the man in silence for ten minutes through the snow and cold, marveling in the utter silence of the place. There was nothing but Tom's breathing, the soft crunch of their boots on the snow-packed road, and the slight rustle of the wind. Mick hadn't been away from the cacophony of L.A. for so long he'd forgotten what true silence sounded like. There were more stars in the sky than Mick ever remembered seeing since he was a child, and he was amazed at just how vast the skies were. It was peaceful here in a way.

Just before they stepped out onto the docks, Tom stopped and turned to face Mick.

"Look, it's really none of my business, and Joe is a very private person, hard to get to know, if you know what I mean." Mick was intrigued that he hadn't bothered to change his first name when he started over here. "But there's something not right about him. In my sixty years in this town, I've seen it time and time again. Young men come here for only two reasons: money, or because they're running away from something. The law, an ex-wife, a bad relationship, it doesn't matter. Joe is not here for the money."

Mick opened his mouth to interrupt but Tom silenced him with a wave of his hand. "And I've seen too many young men look at the sea like she's calling just to them, like she wants them deep in her embrace, and in the dark of the winter, I've seen some of them choose to answer her call and not come back with their ship. The captains can call it an accidental fall overboard if they want, but I used to be a captain, and I know that look. Homer may have thought the sirens were only in the Mediterranean, but they are here in the Bering Sea too, and they are the answer to many a man's despair. Your friend hears their call, Mr. St. John. I can see it in his eyes. He'll answer that call one day. None of us want to lose the best mechanic we've had here in thirty years, but you have to get him out of this place if you really are his friend."

Mick took a second to process what the man was telling him. Josef was suicidal? After four hundred years of thoroughly enjoying his life as a vampire? Josef didn't have to come here. He could have gone anywhere in the world and still have run away, lived in luxury with his billions, and been hard to find. But he'd chosen this end of the earth, chosen to live as a tradesman, and chosen to listen to his own inner demons. It was possible.

Beth had told him about the letter he'd left with her just before he disappeared. She had cried for three days after he'd gone, convinced that she was responsible for ruining their fifty year friendship and forcing him out of the life he'd enjoyed in L.A., all over one night with her. It hadn't been easy for Mick to accept that Josef had probably fallen in love with her, and that Beth had developed some feelings for Josef as well, but Mick had never wanted him to leave. They could have worked something out, some way to keep Josef with them.

It was something he should have seen coming, Mick decided, but Josef had never been like that in all the years they had been friends. Women had come and gone from his bed, both humans and vamps, since Sara had failed to turn fully, and none of them had made Josef feel the need to run. Mick, strangely, was not jealous of the other vamp's feelings for his fiancé. Every time he looked at the beautiful woman he called his own, he wondered how any man could resist her, and why it took Josef so long. He wasn't worried about Josef stealing Beth away from him; he was content in his knowledge of her love, but that didn't mean that they both couldn't care for Josef and find a way to keep him in their lives, in their bed if that's what it would take. It wasn't that unusual of an arrangement for immortals.

But the time for reverie was over. They were standing in front of a sixty foot fishing boat tied up along the pier, and Mick cringed at the name. "Fortune's Fool" was written in large black letters against a red background on the stern of the ship. It belonged to Josef, alright. The smell of vampire was faint given the constant wind off the bay, but it was here, and it was his friend's scent. Tom looked at a note that had been left in some sort of clear waterproof sleeve near the gangway.

"He's down at the Northern Star. Joe works all hours of the day and night, I swear I don't know when that boy sleeps."

"If you only knew," Mick thought as they headed up the pier to a much larger boat. The Northern Star was twice the size of Josef's boat, and not nearly as tidy in appearance.

The captain-turned-bartender yelled loudly for someone named Captain Erickson, and after a minute a man in his forties walked up onto the deck. His red hair and beard were streaked with gray, and his face was hard and unyielding, a lit cigarette held between his lips.

"Tom? What are you doing all the way down here?" Then his eyes slid over to Mick, and he suddenly felt like he was being appraised like a horse at auction. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Mr. St. John. He's a friend of Joe's, and needs to speak with him about an urgent family matter. Would that be possible, Captain?" Tom was polite, but the tightness in his face marked some old conflict between these men. Mick was glad it was none of his business.

"Welcome aboard Mr. St. John." It didn't escape Mick's notice that the captain didn't offer the same courtesy to Tom. Erickson's handshake was strong enough to break bones in a human, and the message was clear about who was in charge here. "Joe's in the engine room finishing up. You're welcome to wait in the galley if you'd like. It's warm in there," he said, leading Mick down a flight of stairs and into a small kitchen, complete with a booth-like table that would be more at home in a neighborhood restaurant that a fishing boat. There was no way that they could have their conversation here with the humans around, so Mick forced himself to sit down and wait for Josef to finish whatever he was doing.

Fortunately, the wait was only about ten minutes. He didn't think he could stand just sitting there with the captain staring at him any longer, utterly silent since Mick declined his offer of a job. All he could think about was how much he missed Beth, and how much he was worried about her.

Mick was startled out of his daydreaming by a _thunk_ at the doorway. Josef stood there, hand resting on a large acetylene tank, wearing a welder's mask with the shield pushed up. He had a well trimmed beard that covered most of his face, but it couldn't disguise the gauntness of his face, or the vacancy of his expression. Tom was right.

Josef walked past Mick with just a cursory nod and handed over what Mick assumed was a bill to the captain. "Give the welds overnight, but you should be good to go by high tide."

"Thanks again, Joe, you're a lifesaver," Erickson said with a genuine smile.

With only an answering nod that lacked every bit of the confidence that Mick had been accustomed to, Josef finally turned to him and said, "Mick. What a pleasant surprise." The words were pleasant, but none of that meaning reached his eyes. "Help me with that tank, if you wouldn't mind, and I'll get the other one from below," he said before disappearing down the narrow stairs, returning a moment later with a similar tank of gas.

Both men carried their burdens out into the night.

Josef walked silently along next to Mick, saying nothing, not meeting his eyes. It was as if he was waiting for something he didn't want to come, and by being silent he could forestall the inevitable.

They reached Fortune's Fool and stepped aboard and down into the small galley after Josef secured the tank and Mick followed suit. Everything on the ship was immaculate, no trace of dirt or rust anywhere, and it was absolutely still except for the two of them. No freshies, no other vamps, and only a faint male human scent that belonged to someone Mick hadn't met yet lingered in the air. The place wasn't a ship so much as a tomb: cold as the winter outside and equally without joy.

Josef continued to move like he'd forgotten Mick was even there, taking off his shirt and heading into the main berth. Mick started to follow him until he saw the other vamps ribs in clear definition, then the loaded gun on the small desk, and he smelled the silver of the bullets. Once the water in the shower had started, Mick headed back for the galley to wait again, setting down his backpack.

While Josef had always made himself at home in Mick's apartment, he wasn't sure if the reciprocal was true. Turns out it didn't matter, there was no blood in Josef's refrigerator, just several cans of Red Bull and half a Tupperware container of spaghetti. Mick was still looking around for the hidden refrigerator when Josef reappeared in a fresh set of clothes with a small container of frozen blood in his hand.

"Don't bother looking. There won't be more human blood delivered until the day after tomorrow, so I hope you brought your own. You do not have permission to hunt in my territory," he said succinctly before dropping the container into a crock pot full of pre-warmed water.

"I don't want to hunt in your territory, Josef," Mick replied.

"Why are you here, then? Come to rub some salt in the wounds? I think that's been done thoroughly already," Josef said bitterly, wiping the counter of its invisible mess with a nearby sponge.

"Yeah, I see that." Mick's instincts told him to be very cautious and careful with his friend. Tom wasn't kidding when he said that Josef was on the edge. He was starving, and obviously depressed, and from the look of things, Mick suspected he wasn't going to last much longer like this. "I need your help. Beth's been taken. I received a note the next day that says they'll trade her back to me in exchange for you."

Josef had stopped cleaning and just leaned on the counter, facing away from Mick and waiting for his blood to thaw. He went completely still for several long moments, and Mick wondered if Josef had even registered what he'd said.

"Did you hear me, Josef?"

"I heard you."

"Look, in spite of what you might think, Beth and I aren't mad at you. We never were. You're my friend, and Beth's too, and we both miss you."

The melting blood occupied all of his Josef's attention for another long moment. "Did you turn her yet, Mick?"

"Not yet, we were going to wait until the wedding." The visible flinch of Josef's shoulders didn't escape Mick's notice, and seeing that reaction hurt Mick just as much as it appeared to hurt Josef. "She wants you to be there. I do too."

"Yeah, well we all want things we can't have."

Stepping closer to his long time friend, hesitating for a half second with his hand just above his friend's shoulder, Mick finally laid it gently on Josef's back. "Josef. Brother. You didn't do anything wrong. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Same reason you did for twenty years."

Pulling the now warm blood from the water bath, Josef opened it and poured it into a cup. Mick cringed as the smell of the contents assaulted his senses. Josef knew well that the taste was just as revolting as the smell, but he drank it anyway.

"What the hell is that stuff, Josef?"

"Horse blood. The salmon sharks like it."

"That doesn't explain why you are drinking it, though."

Changing the direction of the conversation, Josef finally looked Mick in the eyes. "You know, I finally understand you, why you swore off freshies for all those years. It was never about the humans' safety, or denying what you were." he said as he stared at the cup of blood in his hand.

"This isn't about me, Josef, this is about you." Mick was trying to be gentle and supportive, but he knew he wasn't getting very far.

"That's where you're wrong. It has everything to do with you."

Throwing his hands into the air, Mick said, "fine, Josef, I give in. Why did I stop drinking fresh blood? Why did I make myself stupidly miserable for twenty years? Enlighten me." Mick threw himself down onto the padded bench.

The half smile on Josef's lips did nothing to conceal the haunted look in his eyes. "Penance, Mick. Penance." There was to be no absolution, as far as Josef was concerned, and Mick saw in his friend what he'd been warned about.

This just couldn't go on unchecked. Mick stood up and quickly pushed Josef's hand towards the counter, preventing him from taking the next mouthful of the vile substance that really couldn't meet his needs anyway. Josef's eyes flashed vamp for a second before he simply gave up and let Mick have the glass like it wasn't important, like he wasn't hungry anyway, and he walked away.

Josef headed back towards his desk, and Mick was concerned for a moment that he was going to shoot him over the animal blood. But Josef took out several legal-sized pieces of paper and signed them, throwing the stack on the galley table. It was the deed to the boat, signed over to someone that Mick assumed was the owner of the refrigerator's contents. Josef then disappeared up to the deck.

Mick followed him, but he'd already reached the wheelhouse and had started the engines and bilge pump. Josef was on the radio talking to someone, telling them to be down at the dock in fifteen minutes because they were leaving. And something about going to Anchorage. Mick headed up to the wheelhouse. Josef wasn't getting away with igoring him any longer.

"Josef?" Mick said tentatively, hoping that the fifteen minutes would be enough time to get a few things straight.

"Who was the note from?"

"It's not signed," Mick said quickly, before pulling the note out of his pocket and handing it over. Josef held it to his nose and breathed in deeply before turning on a small light that he didn't really need to read the words.

"I should have known. But it's better than I thought; Beth is likely still alive." Josef commented before handing the letter back over and heading out of the cramped room.

"That's it? You should have known? Who the hell has Beth, Josef? And why?"

Turning to look at his friend, Josef just said quietly, "it really doesn't matter, does it? We'll go to Ireland, get Beth, and you two can go back to your happily ever after." There was no bitterness in his words, only resignation as he busied himself securing several items on deck.

"That's not good enough, Josef." Mick was getting irritated by Josef's apparent lack of concern. "I want to get Beth back, kill whoever took her, and then the three of us can go to L.A. and figure out how we're going to get you stay." Mick ran his hands through his hair in frustration, trying to calm himself down enough to rationalize with an irrational man. "You know, you didn't have to leave."

Josef just let it go. "Katherine isn't the forgiving type, and no doubt she's still upset that I left her and came to America the first time. I suspect she won't be amenable to letting me return here a second time, or anywhere else for that matter."

"Who the hell is this woman and what does she want from you?"

Josef undid all the mooring lines but one, disconnected the water and power connections, and waited on the dock for the young man running down the pier.

"She was my mortal wife, and she interpreted our wedding vows a little differently that I did once I became immortal. She didn't think that mortal death counted as dissolution of the marriage. Katherine tries to kill me periodically, usually when some other relationship of hers goes sour and she wants someone to blame. Though I have to say, she's getting more sophisticated in her techniques lately."

"Hey, Joe. I got here as soon as I could," the blonde human said as he rushed onto deck and helped his captain with the gangway. Josef threw the last rope onto the deck and jumped back onto the ship, stumbling in a very un-vampire like way, Mick catching him more gracefully.

Handing off a brown paper package to Josef, the human looked warily at Mick. "I know you said you didn't want this for a couple of days, Captain, but since you were traveling…"

"It's okay," Josef said as he took the bag, "and thank you." Turning back to introduce the two, Josef said, Jackson, this is Mick St. John. He already knows what I am, so you don't have to dance around what's in the package. Mick, this is Jackson Tanner, the man who will be captain of this boat as soon as we reach Anchorage."

Mick held out his hand and appreciated the younger man's strong grip. He couldn't be more than twenty-five, but he was no stranger to hard work, and he obviously knew his way around a sailing vessel.

"Call me Jack. Nice to meet you Mick," he said energetically before heading off to do… whatever it was you did on a ship when it left port. Mick had deliberately avoided traveling by boat since the War, and wasn't feeling too happy about being on the second boat of the night, but he'd endure a lot worse to get Beth back.

Josef took the blood up to the wheelhouse and set it in the small refrigerator without even removing it from the brown paper wrapper. Mick followed him with the cooler from his backpack, adding another five units and keeping two out. He poured each bag of blood into a glass and sat down across from Josef, waiting for the ship to get safely out of the port before moving on to the next segment of their impending argument. Only problem was that Josef didn't want to argue.


	2. Chapter 2

Keep in mind as you read that there can be no light without the darkness.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed the story so far.

--

After they passed the mouth of the harbor and turned towards Anchorage, Mick stood and offered Josef a glass of blood

After they passed the mouth of the harbor and turned towards Anchorage, Mick stood and offered Josef a glass of blood. He took it reluctantly and drank it slowly, like he was forcing himself not to vamp out and gulp down every last drop. The effort was a visible strain as he sat the half empty glass on the low counter next to him.

"Drink the rest of it," Mick commanded. He'd been back in Josef's presence for less than an hour and he was already tired of this crap.

"In a little while," he said as he sat in the captain's chair and looked over a computerized map of the area.

Mick stood and moved next to the other man, picking up the rest of the blood and holding it in front of his face. "Now, Josef. Drink it. I need you sharp, not half starved and weak. Beth needs you strong too."

"You don't get to order me around on my ship, Mick. I'm in charge here, not you," Josef said calmly, like he was commenting on the presence of the sea outside, his eyes never leaving the bow of the ship.

Setting the glass back down on the counter, Mick stepped back a foot. "Fine. Rule of the sea, I get it. But when we get back to port…" Not bothering to finish the sentence, Mick stepped forward again and grabbed Josef around the neck and drove a short wooden stake into his heart, pulling him down onto the floor of the small room. Josef's paralyzed arm pulled the helm sharply to the left on the way down, and the ship listed to port.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this, brother, but the pity party is over. Beth doesn't have time for your self flagellation, and neither do I. It's time for you to get your shit together." Mick fished from his pocket a large metal syringe and filled it with the blood from the second glass, injecting it directly into Josef's carotid artery, refilling and injecting his neck again. It was like Mick could actually see the other vamp's frame filling out before his eyes, the muscles returning to their normal size. His color was no longer ashen, and the small cuts on his hands were healing.

Jack's running footsteps were audible and he was yelling out to Josef. "Captain?! Joe?! What the hell?" He burst through the door to the wheelhouse and his eyes widened at the sight before him… the stake protruding from Josef's chest, the syringe, the blood.

"Relax, Jack." Mick flashed his vampire eyes and fangs at him. "Take the helm and get us back on course. You can do that, can't you?"

The younger man was fixed to the spot, fighting with his fear just to avoid running, his heart rate soaring, but he nodded. Mick decided that Jack may know something about vampires, but he was clearly in uncharted waters. Gathering up the supplies, Mick threw Josef over his shoulder and headed out of the wheelhouse. "Just keep us from grounding, or running into any really large rogue waves. Joe will be back at the wheel in about twenty minutes if he's not dumping my body overboard. This is just sort of a tough-love thing between friends," Mick said carefully, finally giving up trying to explain the situation to a human who looked like a deer in the headlights. The boy was bringing Josef blood for God's sake, had he never seen "Joe" vamped out?

Once the two vampires were out of the way, Jack ran to the wheel and righted the ship, the looked back to make sure there was no one else behind him.

Six more injections on the galley table and Josef almost looked like himself again, except for the beard and the stake in his heart. The puncture wounds from the hypodermic were healing faster each time Mick withdrew it, and he hoped that Josef was well fed enough for some of his sanity to return. A quick trip up to the wheelhouse verified that the ship was back on course, though Jack still looked shaken, and Mick murmured a few words of apology and encouragement before grabbing two more bags of blood from the refrigerator there.

Another unit of AB negative later, Mick was impressed at just how much blood Josef had really been down. He was surprised the other vamp had been able to control himself around the humans. The cold air here had to help, but still.

When Josef finally appeared healthy, even if it had been from feeding the hard way, Mick leaned his face over his friend's so Josef could see him clearly. "Look, Josef, I'll make you a deal. Once you and Beth are safely back in L.A., and we've all had a chance to talk, if you still want to die I'll kill you myself. Quickly and as painlessly as I can, I'll take your head and you won't have to suffer anymore. But I won't allow you to kill yourself by degrees, penance or not. You're still my friend, dammit."

With that Mick pulled the stake free and backed up, expecting Josef's wrath to be legendary. But he just laid there for a moment longer before slowly getting to his feet and straightening his clothes along with his dignity. His face was empty as he went to the counter and emptied the remaining bag of blood into a glass and downed the contents, not giving Mick so much as a glance. When the glass was washed and set upside down to dry, Josef walked towards the door, adjusting his jacket to cover the gaping hole in his shirt made by the stake. He stopped there in the doorway, just below the stairs, but didn't turn around.

"You have a deal," he said quietly, with no hint of sarcasm in his voice, before heading back up to the wheelhouse. Mick collapsed onto the bench seat and ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. This was not going as well as he'd hoped.

Mick stood out on the deck for hours, appreciating the quiet, the solace of the cold night. Except for the low hum of the engine and the waves hitting the side of the ship, it was devoid of sound. Devoid of all the sounds of the city that he hadn't realized he'd become so habituated to over the last fifty years. He could see why Josef had run here, but not why he had run in the first place. Now did not seem like the time to bring it up.

Jack was nervously waiting twenty feet behind him… Mick could hear his heartbeat increase.

"Did you need something, Jack?" Mick turned around and smiled his best _you can trust me_ smile.

"Mr. St. John, I just wanted you to know that I can keep a secret. My family's kept Joe's secret for four generations, and you don't need to worry about me telling anyone what happened. I know secrecy is important to… your people."

"Don't worry, I wasn't going to kill you over it. I knew you were already aware of what Joe was because I could smell the blood you brought him. Just please continue to keep the secret, if you wouldn't mind," Mick said reassuringly.

Jack suddenly looked more relaxed, and joined Mick at the rail, where they both watched the moon setting at the horizon, large and almost red. "My family's mostly Inuit, you know. Joe saved my grandmother's life when she was a child. It was a cold January just like it is now, and she was walking back from fishing with her catch when a polar bear and her nearly grown cub caught the scent of her and the fish. As soon as she realized what was happening she dropped the fish and ran, but the bears wanted her more than they wanted the fish. Joe… he was called Samuel then, got between her and the bears, snapped both of their necks with his bare hands just as my great-grandmother came over the hill, having heard her daughter's cries. There was no way to hide what had happened, or how his skin healed within minutes where he'd been bitten."

Mick listened in silence to the man's story. For all the bluster and talk of not having morals, Josef had done a surprising number of good deeds in his life. Mick couldn't help but feel like he was hearing a story that had been handed down through the generations unchanged, each word memorized by rote and deliberately not embellished.

"So my grandmother and great-grandmother agreed to keep his secret, and feed him as they could. Most of their family gave him blood, and Samuel was always kind to them, even bringing in larger game for them when my great-grandfather died. He only stayed a few years, but my grandmother's sketch of him was shown to each of us when we turned fourteen and were considered old enough to feed him if he ever returned. I knew who he was as soon as he came to town. We keep his secret but do not forget. He saved at least three fishermen from death right there in the harbor, and two more at sea. I hope that someday he will return again."

Mick could only nod once and hope that he could do as the man asked. Jack sounded far older than his twenty-five years, and it felt both strange and right that he tell that story out there, in the middle of the empty sea. There didn't seem to be anything else to say as Jack walked off towards the galley, leaving Mick alone with his thoughts, and Josef alone with his, fifty feet away where he'd been watching the two of them.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my work. The reviews make me write faster. - Laurelin

Josef didn't seem interested in talking. What was there to say that hadn't been said? Everything? Nothing? Mick felt like he was being haunted by the ghost sitting next to him. Josef spoke only to the few humans that were integral in their travel arrangements, and then in as few words as possible, returning each time to sitting still as a statue. His eyes were open but he seemed a hundred miles away, as if not even seeing the inside of the plane or the people in it.

He hadn't even asked about how Beth had been taken, where she was when it happened, or even how she was before then. All he'd wanted to know was whether or not she'd been turned, and when the wedding was, but then appeared strangely disinterested in the answer. It seemed enough for him that he knew where she was and how to get her back.

When the plane landed in New York for refueling, Josef stood and waited by the door, patiently.

"What are you doing, Josef? We're going on to Dublin in less than an hour," Mick reminded him, unsure if the other vamp even knew where they were.

"I have something I have to take care of. We'll leave in six."

Mick started to protest. Beth had already been gone for nearly three weeks, and he hadn't heard from her at all. Every minute they delayed was too long. "Josef, we need to get to Beth as soon as possible, we don't know…"

"This isn't a discussion, Mick."

It was then that Mick saw the thin gold necklace entwined in Josef's fingers. He backed down. "I'm sorry, Josef. I should have known. Do you want me to go with you?" Mick wanted to go to Josef and try to console him in some small way, but he was starting to think that the man he knew as his friend was no longer really there inside that mind.

"It doesn't matter. Suit yourself."

Mick followed him out to the waiting limo. When had he arranged that, he wondered? A fresh pitcher of blood awaited them in the car, from which Josef poured himself a glass and drained it, setting the empty cup aside. He made no move to pour one for Mick.

"May I?" Mick asked tentatively. This was, after all, Josef's limo, and Josef's blood. Just because Josef had apparently been kidnapped by space aliens and replaced with a blank doppelganger doesn't mean that all politeness should be abandoned.

"What's mine is yours," Josef replied, moving his gaze from the midnight streets around them to finally look at Mick directly for the first time since they left Anchorage. They were no longer talking about the blood.

Mick left the pitcher where it was. "That's what this is about. You're jealous. I get it. Maybe you don't need to be. But Jesus, Josef, haven't you figured out how to work through jealousy during the four hundred years you've had to practice?"

"No," he said simply. It was a statement of fact, not the basis for an argument or even a means of baiting Mick. It just simply was. Josef returned to looking out the window and not seeing anything.

"Look, I don't want to offer anything for Beth, because this is something that she wanted to talk to you about in person, but she's talked about inviting you back into our bed on a more permanent basis. She likes you, Josef. She's attracted to you. Love is something that will take a little time… she barely had one night with you, and maybe three days total of being cognizant of your attraction to her before you ran off, but she cares about you. Just because Beth is marrying me doesn't mean that she doesn't want to be with you too."

There was a long pause as Josef tried to cover for his sudden look of interest. "I don't share well."

"Now you're just making excuses to justify your miserable existence. You do so share well. Remember? I was there, in bed, the three of us?"

"I remember. I also know it isn't healthy for your relationship with Beth to have me around. She's in love with you, and I know that, Mick, but I just don't think you can trust me around her. You're my friend, I love your soon-to-be wife, and it's not fair to either of you if I'm around. The two of you are goddamned perfect for each other." The bitterness was palpable as Josef fought with himself not to challenge the other vampire, fought to back himself down into the hole he'd made in his soul.

At least it was refreshing to see Josef apparently interested in something, Mick thought. "Because I have been your friend for so long, Josef, I'm begging you to just wait and talk to Beth when we get her back before you do anything stupid. We've both been looking for you for every day since you disappeared. I have to admit that you covered your tracks well." Mick finally poured himself a glass of blood and stared into it as he talked, occasionally taking a sip.

"How did you find me anyway?" He was rubbing the sides of his cheeks, trying to get used to the feel of his skin without the beard.

"Marcus. When I told him that the woman you were in love with was missing, he gave me the list of every place he'd ever known you to live. Alaska seemed the least likely, so I started there first."

"I didn't know you knew Marcus."

"I didn't. But you have him listed as an emergency contact in New York in case Sara woke up when you weren't there. His number is next to the phone in the safe room here."

Josef straightened his collar and looked rather embarrassed. "So I've become predictable too."

"We're all creatures of habit, Josef. I have to hand it to you though, you were completely off the grid. Logan couldn't find you on any computer based records, and your bank accounts were silent."

"You mean except for the five million dollars that suddenly appeared in your account and Beth's, if I recall," a slightly smug expression crossed Josef's face for a moment as the car slowed and came to a stop in front of their destination.

"Thank you for that, Josef, but it wasn't necessary. We both have jobs, you know."

"Yeah, well, you never know when you're going to have to leave town in a hurry and buy a fishing boat. And besides, I couldn't have either of you marrying a peasant," he said with just a hint of his old smile peeking through.

Mick couldn't help but laugh. That was the Josef he'd called his brother, and he missed that Josef.

As they stepped out of the limo and Josef unlocked the door, the weight of Josef's regrets resettled on his face, if only for a moment. But by the time they reached Sara's room, the usual pleasant but smug façade that Mick had become so accustomed to over the last half century was firmly in place. Mick found himself wondering just how many other times his friend had worn that face and been miserable underneath. The act looked too practiced and polished, too familiar, now that he'd seen the other side.

"Mr. Kostan, how nice to see you again. There's been no change since I spoke with you last." Rosa eyed Mick somewhat suspiciously, as if not sure what she could say in front of the relative stranger.

"It's okay, Rosa. Mick's a friend, and he knows about Sara. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

"No, Sir. Do you require anything?"

"No. Thank you, Rosa. I'll sit with Sara for the next few hours, if you don't mind, but then I will need to go," Josef said in his business-like manner.

Rosa nodded and headed off to the back of the house while Josef continued down the hall towards Sara's room. He paused before opening the door, hesitating with his hand above the doorknob for a second before opening it.

Sara was every bit as beautiful as Josef had remembered, and his heart ached when he looked at her. She was the embodiment of his loneliness, the physical incarnation of all of his regrets, of the wrongs in his life that he couldn't escape. Sometimes when he'd been alone out on the sea through the long nights, he was forced to consider the possibility that he had fallen in love with Beth because she was the living, tangible equivalent of Sara… the woman he wanted desperately but could never have. Was that the only reason he wanted her? It made it easier sometimes to think so.

Mick wasn't sure if he should follow Josef into the room or wait outside, but when he saw Josef kneel by Sara's bedside and take her hand, he decided it was too private of a moment. He closed the door softly and sat at the foot of the stairs to wait.

After an hour and a half, Mick heard Josef on the phone, giving the address of the house quickly before hanging up, followed by a loud crash. The realization hit him at that second and he cursed himself for not understanding the purpose of this visit sooner. "NO, Josef, please!" He sped up the stairs as quickly as he could and threw the door open, truly afraid of what he might see there.

What he found was Josef standing beside the bed, blood-tinged tears running down his face, shining machete held firmly in his hand. He was looking at Sara with an expression Mick couldn't even begin to describe in the intensity of the pain. Josef's cell phone was embedded into the wall above the various medical machines, all of which had been turned off.

"Josef, please." Mick was between them in a flash, and put his hand on the machete handle, grateful to find it not smeared with blood as he tried to draw it slowly out of the other man's grasp. "Call the Cleaner back and tell her not to come," he said carefully. Any thought he may have had about Josef becoming clearer-headed during the trip was now gone.

"I can't do it, Mick. It's my responsibility, and I can't even do this right for her." Josef's eyes never left Sara's face as he spoke.

Thanking fate that the number for the Cleaner was the same in every city, Mick gave the address and informed her that the call had been a little premature and everything was okay. Josef had remained dazed, staring at his beautiful Sara, who was still peacefully oblivious, just as she had been for decades. Josef finally looked at Mick then down at his right hand, seeing that the blade was no longer there, and sank to his knees beside the bed. The scream from his throat was inhuman.

He screamed until he couldn't scream any longer, until he could no longer heal the strain on his throat anymore. Until there was no more fight left inside of him. Mick stayed through it all, knowing there was no way he could leave Josef alone again, not even for a moment. In a way, Mick blamed himself. If he had said no two years ago, just taken his chances with Beth without Josef's oversight in the bedroom, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe it would have anyway.

When Josef quieted, Mick put his hand on his friend's shoulder and knelt next to him, there before the altar that was Sara's bed. Silently, they prayed to her to awaken, to survive, praying not just for her salvation but for Josef's. Mick desperately hoped someone was listening.

After an eternity of the silence between them, Mick finally spoke.

"Josef, we have about an hour left before we have to go save Beth. Why don't you restart whatever machines you need to and just hold Sara until we need to go. You'll see her again soon."

Josef seemed startled by Mick's voice, as if he forgot that the other man had been there. He stood slowly and put his hands on Mick's shoulders as the other man stood, turning him so they were eye to eye.

"Promise me, brother. Promise me you'll come back here straight from Ireland and do what I don't have the courage to do. Kill her quickly so she won't suffer. Please, Mick."

"I won't have to, Josef. You're coming back with us, remember?"

"I'm not. I won't. I think you underestimate the woman that learned ruthlessness from me, Mick. She's not going to let me leave Ireland. Katherine might kill me slowly, it might take days or weeks, but she won't let me live. Not after what I did to her." Josef glanced once at Sara then back at his only friend. "Please don't risk yourself or Beth to help me. I'll get Beth back for you, but then you need to take care of Sara for me. She wouldn't want to wake up and find out I'm dead for good. Please, Mick. Promise me."

There was no doubt in Mick's mind that Josef believed every word he was saying. Maybe he wasn't able to comprehend the possibility that they'd be able to get away, to return to the hope that Sara would one day wake up to be with the man she loved, but Mick was not ready to give up his friend's life so easily. So he said what Josef needed to hear.

"I promise. If you die, I'll see that Sara joins you quickly and painlessly."

Josef nodded and looked visibly relieved. Retreating to the corner to give some illusion of privacy to the other two vampires, Mick looked away while his friend crawled into bed with the love of his life. He saw himself doing the same with Beth… the fear of this incomplete turning with Beth was consuming at that moment. He'd never turned anyone before. Who was to say the same wouldn't happen? He shut his eyes and tried to ignore that voice of paranoia in his head… the same one that had kept him alive so many times when fighting the good fight, the same one he ignored every time when he was in love.

Mick knew without a doubt that Josef wasn't going to fight. If it meant that Beth would be safe in Mick's arms, he knew Josef would go to Katherine willingly, eagerly, even gratefully. And that knowledge scared Mick more than anything.


	4. Chapter 4

Ireland was just as green as Mick had always imagined it would be, and a part of him wished he was here under better circumstances. The two men had not really spoken since New York… Josef had been too busy making phone calls, most of which ended in contingency plans for what to do if he didn't call in a week. None of these calls seemed to make either one feel any better about what was to come.

At least somewhere in there Josef had arranged for a limo to pick them up from the airport and take them to their hotel, which Mick was surprised to learn was vamp friendly. The penthouse suite came complete with freezer, retractable blackout shades, and a fully stocked mini-bar, vampire style. Too bad they weren't planning on staying long.

Mick set down his bags in his room and immediately began unpacking and double checking his vampire execution kit. Stakes, mini crossbow, silver alloy throwing knives, fully automatic submachine gun with silver bullets, everything one could want when hunting their own kind, most of which were stowed in custom made holsters. It was good to be rich and able to bypass customs.

Josef watched him from the doorway, shaking his head. "You can carry all you want, Mick, but I'd advise you not to brandish a weapon in front of my ex. She'll see it as a personal insult and likely take it out on Beth. If she's as smart as I remember, she already knows what Beth means to you, which makes it a given that Katherine controls you because of it. Right now, you are only a means to an end for her… the delivery boy for what she ordered, and nothing else unless you make it more complicated. I don't want to see things get more complicated for you or Beth, so just hand me over, get Beth safely out of the country, and enjoy the inheritance I've left for the two of you."

"We've already been over this, Josef. I'm not going to let some crazy woman kill you if I can do anything to stop it," Mick said defiantly.

"Who said she was crazy?" Josef asked in all seriousness.

"She kidnapped Beth so I'd find you! From what you've said she likely has planned some inventive and very painful ways of getting back at you for whatever you did to her." Mick thought for a moment. "What did you do to her, Josef?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might."

"Fine." Josef sat on the bed and wished he'd had time for another haircut before his funeral. "She was one of my earliest meals when I was a fledgling. I drained her and left her for dead. Unfortunately for me, Lola found her, barely alive and turned her, knowing that she wanted the immortality, knowing that she was in love with me. Lola mistakenly thought I was in love with my wife and planned to use that against me, but unfortunately for me, I had chosen not to air our dirty laundry out of my own sense of propriety. When Katherine came to me, newly turned, she was very forgiving of my error, chalking it up to fledgling hunger… making it out to be a simple and forgivable mistake on my part."

"Was it? A mistake?" Mick asked as he strapped two silver knives to his ankles.

"Of course not. I never liked her. We married because it was arranged and we were both expected to marry who our parents chose for us. That was the way things were in the late sixteenth century, we were fifteen years old for God's sake. Only peasants married for love and we were most certainly not peasants. I'd quickly grown tired of her constant prattling on about nothing, her frequent requests that I visit her bedchamber, and I'd had enough ten years later."

Mick looked startled. "So you tried to kill her on purpose, but you didn't finish the job?"

"See, I've always told you we had more in common that you thought."

"Shit."

"Exactly. 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.' Congreve was a friend of Katherine's, well, his mistress actually. Can you tell?"

"So, every so often when she escapes the minders she tries to kill me. Not personally of course. She once told me she could never hurt me directly, that she still loves me, though I'm inclined to think that given recent events, she might have gotten over that little hangup, or she might have just hired a good torturer."

"What's her usual M.O.?" Mick asked as he examined the contents of his kit, as if Josef's response would help him make up his mind what to bring.

Josef stood up and poured each of them a tall glass of blood from the mini-bar, then sat back down on the bed and paged through the local travel magazine that the hotel had supplied. "Time before last she hired a vamp who used to be a hit man for the Nazis. He blew up Marcus' party house while we were in it… Marcus was not pleased, and he sent out his own assassins after her, but she'd run back under the radar by then. The last time she tried to kill me she was a little more subtle. She sent a freshie, quite the attractive AB negative if I do say so myself, complete with excellent references and a silver plated stake. If she'd been about an inch to the left I would have been in real trouble. At other times Katherine has sent a variety of assassins after me, and once went after my money. See, even us paranoids have some real enemies."

"Have you tried to kill her a second time, Josef?"

"Directly? Not recently. Lola used to keep Katherine in line and out of reach most of the time, then occasionally let her out to play when I didn't give Lola what she wanted. Lola's dead now, though."

"Yeah, I remember. Did you know Katherine would be after you again because of it?"

"Yes, but I thought it would take her longer. After the last time, I had Ryder seize all of her assets, which were considerable, and transfer them to my ownership. I mistakenly thought she'd need more time before she surfaced again. Assassins are getting more expensive, you know. Inflation." Josef shrugged his shoulders like he was discussing the price of commodities futures.

"So the two of you have been playing cat and mouse for four hundred years with Lola as the referee?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up. Sorry to bore you with the details."

"So, I'm going out on a limb here, Josef, but I'll be the one to say that your ex-wife is crazy."

"You think so?"

Mick smiled as he pulled on a shoulder holster and settled the automatic pistol underneath his jacket. Josef sarcastic had to be a good sign. A quick glace and the mirror reassured him it wasn't visible unless his coat opened. Finishing his glass of blood, Mick turned around and rinsed both glasses, setting them back on the counter.

Josef stood and waited for Mick to finish, with a more sullen look on his face than normal as of late. "Look, Mick…"

"I'm not promising you anything else that will make it easier for you to go down without a fight, Josef."

"I understand." Josef put his hand on his friend's arm. "I'm sorry you and Beth had to become involved in this mess." He pulled his friend into a guy-appropriate hug, then drove the stake he'd picked up from the vampire kit straight into Mick's back, hitting his heart quickly. He picked Mick up and placed him into the freezer gently, on his side.

"I'm sorry, Mick. For everything. I'll get her back for you, I promise." He closed the lid gently and made a quick call to Marcus to get Mick out the freezer in two days if he wasn't back. The he grabbed an extra stake and tucked it into his pocket, leaving the directions he'd written out earlier for Mick to where he thought Katherine was holding Beth on the table nearest the freezer. Josef's hand hesitated a moment around a second envelope with Beth's name on it before finally dropping it next to the first one. The soft metallic _clink_ left by the latter as it hit the surface of the table was drowned out by the sound of the door Josef slammed on his way out.


	5. Chapter 5

The two hour drive from Dublin to Youghal gave Josef a chance to think, to contemplate his ex-wife's weaknesses and hope that they had not changed much in four hundred years. She would undoubtedly be waiting for him at St. Mary's Church, where they'd been married so long ago. He remembered how Katherine used to go there daily to pray that they be blessed with a child, but when it became clear that there was to be no baby, Josef had distanced himself physically as well as emotionally from the woman. There had been no point in pretending after that. His dismissal of her only served to bring her back to the Church even more frequently, and this place became a symbol for her of all the wrongs he had done her over the years, and her hopes for his forgiveness. It was a fitting place for her revenge.

The solid oak door gave way easily to Josef's shoulder, and the smells inside of the church immediately overwhelmed him. The scent of vampire was there, mingled intimately with the smell of old death from the crypts underneath the church and the smell of the thousands of humans who had left their mark here over the centuries. Restoration had obviously been done since the last time he'd stepped foot in this place two nights after he'd been turned. It remained a beautiful church if somewhat different than the day he was married here. The altar was still there, much as it had been when he'd prayed to God to save his soul from the blood drinking demon that had taken him over, and the silence he received in response was just as bitter now. There was to be no peace for him in this place, then or now, and no salvation.

As he sat in one of the pews and waited, a young girl approached him, dressed in her Sunday best, her blonde hair tied back in a colorful ribbon. She couldn't have been more than ten or eleven from the way she looked, but the smell of decay from her said she had to be at least a hundred years old. Most vamps turned at her age didn't last very long… it was considered a kindness by the older vamps to put them down.

"You are now Josef Kostan, are you not?" She asked in a sweet voice with a full brogue that Josef found almost enthralling. He quickly regained control of himself and let the full weight of his gaze settle on her.

"I am. Where's my wife?" he asked coldly, almost indifferently.

"She's waiting for you. Follow me," she said with a picture-perfect smile that was a little too predatory to be alluring.

Josef stood and followed her out into the night. He tried to appreciate what would likely be his last glimpse of the stars, the moonlight, the last of his freedom, and his pitiful life. He wasn't sorry to see it end, he'd made enough of a mess of it, though he had always hoped for a quick death. However, he had learned long ago that you can't always get what you want, and he was finally starting to get used to disappointment.

They walked through the cemetery where his human parents were buried and up onto the remnants of the old town wall. His guide dropped easily down onto the grass twenty feet below and he followed, heading down the road towards Myrtle Grove. Katherine always had a soft spot for Sir Walter Raleigh and it seemed fitting that she'd acquired his former home for her purposes, especially since he was to meet a similar dismal end on the order of a woman he once shared a bed with. Poetic, really. Too bad he didn't give a damn about poetry.

Josef flipped open his cell phone as they walked at a normal human pace and redirected his driver to the entrance of the property. He wanted that car as close as possible to where Beth was, and certainly within sight when it was time to negotiate her release. Surprisingly, his petite escort said nothing at his communication. Not a good sign.

Katherine was waiting for him in the courtyard, looking every bit the modern woman with her long red hair slicked back and a low cut little black dress. Simple gold earrings adorned her ears, and Josef was surprised to see that she still had her wedding ring. She was turned at the height of her beauty, and the deep blue of her eyes had only become more intense over the years. There was a time when he had found her body attractive, but her mind had long since poisoned his viewpoint.

"Josef," her clear voice calm and controlled, so unusual for her. "How nice of you to join me on this lovely winter's evening."

"Cut the pleasantries, Katherine, it's time to do business. The human belongs to my friend, and he's agreed to your generous terms of my life for hers. I asked Mick not to come, as he was quite intent on adding you and your juvenile assistant to his considerable vampire kill record for even touching his human. Should he find you unwilling to keep your word on this, he will certainly know where to direct his wrath since I left him explicit instructions on your whereabouts, your finances, and how to track you and your two accomplices. If, however, you were to release his little plaything, you would be free to enact your revenge upon me unmolested. He is a man of his word."

"Indeed. I see that the years have not dulled your sense of humor, but you have to admit that my terms were quite fair. He gives me something that I want in exchange for something he wants. Is that now how business negotiations are conducted, Liam, or have I been mistaken about that as well?"

"Calling me by my given name was not part of your terms. Once we have finished the transaction you have so carefully laid out, you will have your other demands met. The girl first, unharmed, in exchange for me in my perfect, unblemished state."

She took the first sauntering steps towards him as he pulled a syringe of silver nitrate from his coat pocket and rolled up his sleeve, letting a drop of the vile substance leak out of the needle and onto the gravel beneath his feet. The smell of it stopped her in her tracks.

"Darling, is that supposed to be for me? You won't get within thirty feet of me before you find a stake in your chest."

"It's good to see that some things haven't changed at all in four centuries. You are still the one to initiate the threats. But to answer your question, this is not for you. It is for me if you do not comply with your part of the bargain. If you had wanted me dead, you would have only had to ask Mick for my head on a silver platter. He would gladly have given it to you in exchange for his woman. I'll deny you your entertainment if you do not release the human in…. the next thirty seconds. I'm tired of waiting." Josef did his best to look bored, carefully schooling his face to conceal any hint of his genuine concern, hoping he could get the plunger on the syringe fully depressed by the time the scary little pre-teen got to him.

Throwing back her head, Katherine laughed that haughty, empty laughter of the nobility that she had once been. Without turning to look behind her, she waved her right hand forward, and a door opened. Josef could smell another vampire before he could see him leading Beth outside, the sweet scent of her skin so tightly held in his mind from the last time he'd seen her, and he hid his relief as best he could.

"That's just like you, never allowing me to enjoy my little victories. It was always about you and what you wanted, wasn't it?"

"Of course it was. Still is," Josef said with the syringe poised above the largest vein in his forearm.

"Well, I certainly will have to change your view on that before I'm through with you. I give you at most… two days before you see things my way. For once it will be only about what I want. Please try not to break too soon, it will spoil my fun."

Beth had appeared in the doorway and was walking carefully towards him, her heart beating wildly. She had no visible injuries, and he was careful to avoid direct eye contact with her. He couldn't afford to take his eyes off of Katherine and her minion, and it was better if she thought Beth meant very little to him beyond satisfying the terms of her demands.

"Josef?" Beth asked quietly, her human eyes not able to see him clearly in the dark courtyard as she walked towards him.

"Get in the car, Beth. Now. Your part in this is over."

"But…" Beth said, clearly confused.

"Do not question your betters, girl. Do as I say, now." Josef's voice was cold and hard, and it took every ounce of self control not to go to her and embrace her that one last time. Hurting her, physically or emotionally was the last thing he wanted to do, and he knew his words stung, but there was really no choice. The letter he had left for her would have to suffice to describe his last thoughts to the woman he loved. Josef avoided looking directly at Beth, constantly reminding himself that it would only reveal his weakness at a time he couldn't afford to be seen as vulnerable. From the look on her face, Josef was certain that if Katherine guessed what Beth meant to him, she'd keep her, and torture her in front of him just to see him hurt.

Beth hesitated for a second before running to the car. The sound of the door closing followed by the fading noise of the engine released a sudden tension in his chest that he didn't know he had. It really didn't matter what happened now, as long as Beth was safe. Given the looks of the scraggly minions his ex-wife had been able to dredge up from the bottom dwellers, there wasn't anyone of any consequence waiting to reclaim Beth or hurt Mick, not that it would serve Katherine's purposes anyway. She was going to get what she wanted. Recapping the syringe, Josef threw it down on the ground ten feet in front of him and sank to his knees, expecting the stake that quickly found his heart. The smiling child that had wielded the jagged piece of wood twisted it several times in his chest, all the while smiling at him in a way that was anything but childish. He knew then who was going to be doing the breaking.


	6. Chapter 6

The ride back to the hotel seemed to take an eternity, and the driver knew essentially nothing that could help her

The ride back to the hotel seemed to take an eternity, and the driver knew essentially nothing that could help her. He'd given Beth a key to the hotel room and told her the number, but he was silent on what other instructions Josef had given him. Everyone was moving in slow motion except for her. Even the electronic key pad on the door was not cooperating, and she hadn't been able to rouse Mick by banging on the door. Her anxiety was reaching a new peak by the time she finally entered the empty hotel room.

Figuring quickly that Mick had gone looking for Josef, but wondering why he wasn't with the other vampire earlier, Beth glanced at the table by the door and found the two letters that were waiting for her and Mick. Each name was written in the flowing script that could only be Josef's handwriting. She tore open the envelope with her name on it and a delicate gold ring, set with a single large diamond, flanked by two sparkling emeralds, clattered to the tile beneath her feet. She watched it fall almost as if in slow motion, and as she bent to pick it up, her heart sank. Josef wasn't planning on coming back, on being there if Mick said no to her request for immortality, if she needed him. Maybe he already knew Mick had reluctantly agreed to turn her once they were married, maybe he didn't, but in looking at the ring she began to grasp just how bad the situation was.

The tears that had been welling up in her eyes finally fell slowly down her cheeks as she fell back onto the bed and read his letter.

Dearest Beth,

If you are reading this it means that you have reached the safety of the hotel, but I would ask that you and Mick leave the country as soon as possible. The jet should be fueled and the pilot waiting for your arrival. This isn't your fight, Beth, it's a disaster of my own making, and you'll be safer in L.A.

Mick told me of his plans to turn you after you are married, and I am truly happy for both of you. He has been a good friend to me and will be a good husband to you, of that I am certain.

I love you,

Josef

P.S. Mick is in the freezer in the second bedroom. Pull the stake out gently.

The ring she slipped onto her finger as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist and ran into the bedroom. Mick was motionless there in the freezer, and even though she knew Josef would never have killed him, it scared her to see him helpless and not moving. Her hands shook as she pushed Mick carefully onto his stomach and pulled on the stake. Just because she'd done this before didn't make that sickening sucking sound as the stake came free any easier to bear.

Mick sucked in air and moaned, clutching at his chest briefly, before sitting up, relief filling his whole body as he pulled Beth against him. The scent of her skin, her hair was heaven, and she was safe. He'd worried so much that he'd never see her again, but she was finally back with him and he never wanted to let her go. Without releasing her from his embrace, Mick climbed out of the freezer and carried her to the bed.

"You're back, you're safe now. It's okay. I love you so much, Beth," he whispered into her ear as his strong arms encircled her.

"I love you too, Mick," she said quietly between short sobs, her grip on him as strong as her human arms would allow.

"Are you okay?" he asked, hoping that this round of kidnapping wasn't bringing back the bad memories of her childhood.

"Yeah, I think so. They didn't hurt me or anything, Mick. They just wouldn't let me leave until Josef got there. I hate to say it, but I'm getting used to being kidnapped and rescued by vampires."

Mick smiled at her attempt to lighten the mood, but still, he just wanted to hold her like this, never let anyone else take her or threaten her. Mick suddenly felt even more protective of Beth than usual, but strangely also protective of Josef. Maybe because he wasn't bothering to protect himself, Mick thought silently.

At least Josef had the foresight to make sure Mick was not only well fed before he was staked, but in the freezer to conserve his energy. The wound had already healed, and was only a little hungry, which was fortunate since Beth was so close to him. He could feel her tears as they fell onto his shirt, the wetness and warmth stinging his cold skin while his own red tears fell onto the soft duvet cover beneath his head. They held each other like that until Mick could no longer avoid the inevitable.

"Beth, is Josef…?" He couldn't even say the word, as if saying it would make it too real. He stared at the diamond and emerald ring on her right hand. It was the last piece of the set that Josef had given to her, the piece he was saving in case she ever decided she wanted him instead of Mick. He'd held onto it those two years he was away, and all the way up until he gone to bring Beth back home. _To me, _Mick thought, _home to me._

She lifted her head and kissed him lightly on the lips briefly. "I don't know. He told me to go to the car… yelled at me really. I got the impression that things were not going well between him and that woman, and he wanted me to go in case, in case…" Beth put her head back down on Mick's shoulder, and ran her fingertips lightly over the smooth skin above his heart, still amazed at how fast he could heal. At least one of them could heal a broken heart.

Mick sat them both up and the led Beth by the hand into the room where Josef had staked him a few hours before. The vampire kit was still strewn out over the bed, and Mick quickly took inventory.

"There's a stake and a full syringe of silver nitrate missing. Josef had to have taken them. This is good. Maybe he was planning to fight." Mick started replacing the items in their duffel bag as Beth was trying to understand what was going on.

"Of course he'll fight, well, that's assuming his tough negotiation tactics don't work. I'm sure he just wanted to get me out of harm's way before he started it." Beth didn't know, couldn't have known what Josef was like since he'd left, Mick realized. He pulled her down to sit on the edge of the bed with him, his arm around her shoulders.

"Beth, he's not… himself. I think he had the vampire equivalent of a nervous breakdown, if there is even such a thing. He wanted to rescue you, but he also staked me and put me in the freezer because he didn't want there to be a fight. Josef was just going to go there and surrender himself, trade his life for yours, if I'm not mistaken."

"What? He's four hundred years old, powerful, connected, and he had you to back him up. Hell, he could afford to hire his own personal army, for God's sake. Why would he do such a thing? And I still don't understand why he wouldn't let you come with him." Mick could smell her fear.

"Because he's not thinking clearly. He's depressed, and I don't know… broken somehow. I found him in Alaska, living on a boat without a freshie in sight, half starved, and lacking the motivation do to anything other than wallow. I've never seen him like that, Beth. When I told him what happened to you, he signed over his boat to the lone human working for him and we left. Just like that. No questions, no complaints, just… nothing." Mick rubbed her back absentmindedly while she snuggled into his chest. "I had to stake him and inject him with blood because he wouldn't drink enough on his own. I think he misses you."

"He could have come back, or not left in the first place. I never meant for this to happen, Mick. I never meant for him to leave."

"I know, Beth, neither did I." He hugged her closer and kissed the top of her head, their hands intertwining on top of his legs. "I'm not sure what really happened to him the day that he left L.A., but it wasn't good. We barely spoke the whole way here. But then today, when we were getting ready to go find you, Josef was seeming more like himself for a few minutes, and he hugged me like an old friend, just before driving a stake into my heart. Maybe I should have seen it coming. Maybe I should have seen a lot of things coming with him."

"We have to go find him, if it's not too late. It's been a little over four hours I think. There's still a chance." Beth suddenly remembered the letters and ran to the other room, showing hers to Mick and handing him the other. They both read the second letter in silence.

Dear Mick,

Sorry about the stake, but we're even now. I know it ruins your little hobby, but at this point I have to recommend that you turn Beth soon so she can defend herself from vamps.

Please take Beth and get out of the country, immediately.

Marry Beth and enjoy the rest of your lives, please. If I do not return, you'll find that I've left you the mansion, half a dozen other properties throughout the world, the cars, the freshies, and plenty of money. Come to think of it, I've left you and Beth everything really. You should be able to live quite comfortably together, and I truly wish you long and happy lives.

I still expect you to keep your promise about Sara if you don't hear from me in a week. If I can manage to kill Katherine during that time and get away, I will, but I doubt she'll tolerate my continued existence more than a few days.

Thank you for taking care of Sara and Beth when I could not. I guess I never had much luck with love. Thank you, Mick. I owe you.

Josef

Mick threw the letter in the bag with the stakes and guns just as his cell phone rang. He flipped the phone open with an irritated motion. "Mick St. John."

"Jesus, Mick. When were you going to call me? I'm not getting any younger over here." It was Logan. Mick had never been so happy to hear that voice. He should have thought to call the computer nerd before now.

"If I call you Lando Calrissian from now on will you help me find Josef?"

Without any hesitation, Logan said, "wow, that was easy, and yes. He's currently 3.4 miles west of Shannon Airport, heading east, so I'm thinking that the airport might be the destination. The only problem you have is that you're in Dublin and too far away to stop them if they get on a plane there. Do you want to head to the airport in Dublin and I'll figure out their likely destination? Worst case scenario you can fly to Shannon and make up a little time. Everything is ready and waiting for you there. Hey, do you think I could get a ride on that plane sometime? I heard it has its own freezer, a big bed, and a staff of freshies that will..."

Mick cut him off. "Logan, we'll talk about that part later, okay? For now, just find Josef."

"Call me Lando. You made a deal." Mick could almost see him pouting on the other end of the phone.

"Fine." Mick rolled his eyes at Beth. "Lando. If you get Josef back safely to L.A., minus the crazy ex-wife, I'll ask him if you can ride in the plane and sample his… never mind. Just call me as soon as you know where they're headed."

"The car has slowed down and is at the airport, in case you were wondering. Can I call you Han Solo?"

"No!" Mick shouted before hanging up and gathering the few things left in the room, including the cooler full of blood, and headed for the front desk. But Mick stopped halfway through the lobby and reached for his cell phone as Beth stepped over to the restaurant to get some food to go.

"Logan… I mean, Lando. How did you know to call me, and why were you already tracking Josef? I hadn't asked you to yet."

Mick could hear the self-satisfied chuckle as Guitar Hero started up in the background. "Josef set it up, before you landed in Dublin. He was going to give you the opportunity to just bring your freshie back to L.A. and leave him there, but I was getting bored watching his little blip flash on the map. So I called."

"I'm glad you did." Mick let the freshie comment slide. Logan had never been known for his tact. "Call me back when you have something."

"Calrissian out." Mick shook his head and put the phone back in his pocket, hoping for all of their sakes that he hadn't used up all of his luck when Beth had agreed to be his wife.


	7. Chapter 7

This really wasn't going as well as Josef had hoped. He had not seen Katherine since he was loaded in the trunk of the car, stake in place, and she hadn't said a word to him since their negotiation over Beth. He'd thought for sure that what Katherine wanted was an apology, repentance, an admission of wrongdoing for whatever past transgressions she thought him guilty of, but she had not demanded anything. Maybe he had been wrong about her. She could just want him dead in a slow and painful way, which was becoming more likely with every passing moment. But at least Beth was safe, and that's all that truly mattered to him. Sara he couldn't save after what he'd done to her, but Beth he could, and did. She'd be happy with Mick, hopefully forever, and that thought was his only comfort.

Maybe his ex was enjoying watching him remotely, he wasn't sure, but the lack of her presence was concerning. Katherine he could manipulate, but the little blonde vampire wasn't as inexperienced as the sweet look on her face would lead many to believe. Her obvious expertise with a blade and the child-sized set of silver-alloyed knives were making it harder and harder to stay conscious in between their sessions. He'd lost count of how many times she'd come to him to inflict pain, and he wasn't sure how many days had passed, but the combination of his own blood loss and the silver had him very hungry.

When the child vampire with no name wasn't slicing him up she'd leave him chained, not that she really needed to. He was too weak to heal his wounds or get free of the manacles anyway. In the empty times in between the pain, Josef let his mind wander back to the one night he'd had with Beth. The feel of her so warm and willing in his arms, the look of pleasure on her face, the taste of her blood… the memories did help distract him. Finally he heard her sweet voice calling to him softly and he knew his grasp on reality was starting to slip. He didn't fight that slow slide into the darkness; he welcomed it. Beth was safe, she was safe away from him, away from Katherine and her little minion, and that was the only thing that mattered. He repeated these thoughts in his head like a mantra, gaining some comfort in their truth.

But Beth was there, waiting for him in the dark for him, her warm skin shining in the moonlight, calling to him. The grass was feather light, so alive under his feet as he walked barefoot across it to join her, the smell of her body perfuming the soft, cool air. The night smelled so familiar somehow, but he didn't know why, and didn't care because it all just felt right. All that mattered was the woman in front of him, reaching out to him as he called her name, quietly, content in the knowledge that she could hear him perfectly. When his hand touched hers, she smiled and gathered him into her arms, easing the pain that he could no longer place.

As they stepped directly from the grassy hill into a bedroom filled with dark blue satin, Josef paused, his knees buckling out from under him suddenly. Every detail of his bedroom was as he remembered it… the glow of the candles, the softness of the bed, the rose petals scattered on the sheets. Beth pulled the remains of his tattered clothes away from his body, though he couldn't remember how they'd come to be that way. Her own green silk nightgown slid off of her shoulders with the barest whisper of fabric on flesh.

When he felt her body against his, relaxing into each other in the intimacy not just of lovers, but of a man and a woman in love, he knew he must have finally died for good. This was his private version of Heaven; Beth in his arms, so beautiful and willing, the smell of her desire overwhelming him as he kissed her, feeling her respond so quickly to his touch. Her soft moans of pleasure as he sucked on first one nipple, then the other, plunging his fingers into the heat of her wetness, was all that he had dreamed of since he'd left her. But he had left her, cast himself out of this Heaven, and he searched his mind for a reason why he would have done such a thing.

But then Josef suddenly remembered all of the sins he had committed, damning his soul and making it impossible for him to have this bliss. He had killed too many humans to even remember, hurt far more, and those were only some of his most egregious. A sudden sharp pain in the right side of his chest and Beth was running from him, from those things he had done, from how he had hurt her, and the pain expanded, shattering the perfection.

He opened his eyes and saw only the smile of pleasure on the face of a girl, her hands covered in his blood as she carved his chest open with a small silver knife. He could get past the pain, would eventually get past it from the sheer amount of blood loss whether he wanted to or not, but what waited for him on the other side was most definitely not Heaven. Beth running away from him was truly his personal Hell.

There was no Beth, no peace waiting for him in the darkness. She was gone.

Josef finally screamed, from physical pain, and also for his regrets. The giggles of the girl with him seemed so out of place, more suited to Christmas morning than the slow death she was inflicting on another of her kind. There was no air left in his lungs to beg for mercy, only the heaviness in his chest weighing him down. He didn't want to die in this dank cellar at the hands of a sadistic child, and without seeing Beth one last time.

The darkness swallowed him again, and there she was, standing on the same hill in the same thin piece of green silk, waiting for him. He knew where they were headed when he took her hand, and he wasn't afraid, he wanted to feel her in his arms again, calling out his name. As he laid her down on the fragrant rose petals, he felt his chest tighten, and he could not draw in air to speak. But the thought was pushed from his mind by Beth's hands running through his hair, pulling him closer to her body, and he kissed her mouth, tasting her sweetness, the softness of her lips.

The pain was not so distracting anymore, he thought to himself, aware only at that moment that there was still the pain, holding him back from making love to the beautiful woman on the bed in front of him. But he couldn't remember where the pain was coming from, whether it was real or not.

He could feel her body, hear her heartbeat, not underneath him anymore, but nearby. He looked down and she was no longer on the bed, but he heard her voice, felt the draw of her blood from somewhere else. She was leaving him again; he couldn't let her go, not this time.

"Josef?" Beth sounded more frantic now.

Raising his head he searched the room with his eyes, unable to find the source of her voice. There was no sign of her outside on the grass or at the top of the hill, and he knew he didn't want to go back to the bottom of the hill. Every time he tried to go in the direction of her voice as she called to him, it became fainter, harder to follow. Josef wanted to go to Beth, more than anything else, but he couldn't find her in the dark, and a voice inside of him, the same voice that made him run from her that first time, was yelling at him to stay away from her.

--

"Stay back," Mick yelled at Beth as she tried to go to Josef, his limp body hanging from a set of silver manacles, the small spikes on the inside of them digging into his wrists.

Beth froze where she was as Mick beheaded the vampire child staked at his feet. The splatter of blood reached her clothes, but it wasn't the death of one so young in appearance that made her flinch. It was Josef, his torso and arms covered in deep gashes, his blood on the floor of the basement, too much of it for him to have survived.

"I have to get him down, Mick," Beth said without taking her eyes off of Josef. It was like watching a car accident victim. Seeing him like that was horrible, she couldn't imagine him surviving it, but she had to look anyway.

Mick was in front of her all of a sudden, his hands on her shoulders, and she was surprised that she had taken another two steps towards the motionless body. There was blood on his sleeves and his pants from the two vampires he'd killed, but nothing like what had run down Josef's body and pooled at his feet.

"Is Josef… is he… dead?" she asked, not wanting to really say the word. She couldn't cry, couldn't think, it was too much blood, and his wounds didn't close.

"Beth, if there's any chance he can be saved, Josef will be very, very hungry. He'll kill you before he could even understand that he'd taken too much. I need you to go upstairs and get the blood from the car, and wait up there." Mick took her chin in his hand gently and forced her face away from Josef's battered body. "Please, Beth. Bring me the blood from the car, and I will see if I can help him." The look on his face said that he too was trying to fathom what had happened, if it could be repaired, even in a vampire.

By the time Beth came back with the cooler of blood, Mick had moved Josef upstairs to the small living room there and laid him on the sofa. Beth tried to go to Josef because she wanted to touch him, let him know she was here, that Mick was here, but Mick made her sit up against the far wall as he worked. The first three syringes of blood he injected 

seemed to have no effect, and they exchanged a worried look. Tears were running down Beth's face, and it took all of Mick's courage not to give into the despair. If his head was still attached and he hadn't been burned, Mick wondered how he could tell if a vampire was well and truly dead?

On the fourth injection, Mick saw the largest wound on Josef's chest start to fill in slowly, and he increased the speed of the intravenous feedings into his friend's neck.

Beth noticed the new sense of urgency. "What's happening, Mick?"

"I think he's healing, but it's slow."

Her sigh of relief was audible, and she wanted to go to him more than anything at that moment. She started to edge closer, but Mick reminded her, "it's not safe Beth, please just wait over there, I'll tell you when it's okay to come near him. Can you get a cell phone signal from here?"

With shaking hands, she opened her cell. The signal wasn't great, but it was adequate.

"Yes."

"Good. Call the cleaner and tell her where we are. Make sure to mention that we are also going to need fresh blood." Mick looked down at the rapidly depleting Red Cross take-out in the cooler. "At least another six or eight pints."

"That's a lot of blood." Beth said quietly.

"Yeah, I know." Mick answered as he paused to pull off the tattered remains of Josef's pants, looking for more injuries. His shirt was nowhere to be found. He rattled off the cleaner's number for Beth.

"Aren't they going to know I'm not a vampire?"

"No, but if she gives you any trouble, just hand me the phone."

A few moments and another pint of blood later, Beth closed her cell phone. "Two hours. It's going to take them two hours to get here from the mainland." Katherine had chosen one of the most remote islands off the western coast of Ireland, and she had chosen well. Between the sound of the waves crashing on the rocky shore nearby and the relative desolation, no one would have heard Josef's screams. "She said she'd do what she could about the blood, but no promises she could get that much that quickly."

Five minutes later the blood they'd brought with them was gone, all of it injected into Josef, who finally took a ragged breath and used it to moan.

Mick took his friend's hand and knelt down next to the sofa. "It's okay, Josef. You're going to be okay," he said, trying to sound reassuring while he was wiping away the old blood from Josef's chest and examine the wounds underneath.

"Beth?" Josef whispered but kept his eyes closed. It still hurt to move, or breathe, or lay still for that matter.

She wanted to go to him but the look on Mick's face kept her back. "I'm here, Josef."

He turned his head towards her voice and finally opened his eyes, the light blue of vampire all she could see there until he smiled. Even though his fangs were visible, the smile was all human. It was Josef's smile.

Struggling with the needed breath, Josef said, "I found you," before closing his eyes again, the look of pain on his face gone completely.


	8. Chapter 8

An hour went by while Josef rested, moaning occasionally when he tried to move, as Mick stood by and waited. Beth still had not been permitted to get too close to Josef since he was still in need of blood, a lot of blood, and hers may have proven too enticing. She sat up against the wall and watched the two men she loved, hoping she was not going to have to choose between them, hoping that Josef wouldn't die and make the choice for her. The look on Mick's face said he was worried, that it wasn't going as expected. The few times she'd seen Mick heal it had been very fast once he'd had blood, and Josef had had a lot of blood already. He should be up and walking around by now.

"Mick," she whispered, "what's wrong with him? Why isn't he healing faster?"

"The knives she used are silver, but I honestly don't know if that's all of the problem."

"You could start by cutting out the three silver bullets in my abdomen and the one in my chest, you know," Josef whispered back.

Mick looked startled that the immobile body on the sofa was speaking. "Josef?"

"What?" Josef opened his eyes and stared looked at Mick, careful not to move more than his eyes.

"Why the hell didn't you say so before?" Mick asked, heading for his bag to retrieve suitable bullet-removing tools.

Josef didn't answer for a minute, a look of pain crossing his face as he tried to take another breath in to speak. "Hurts to talk," he whispered, "and I was hoping to wait for the cleaner… she could be gentler than you are." He tried to smile but couldn't. "And I'm hungry."

Mick glanced at Beth for a second, the same look on his face he always had when worried about the safety of her fragile human body.

"Josef, you've had all the blood I brought with me. The cleaner is supposed to bring more, but she won't be here for at least another hour. Are you a danger to Beth right now? I need to know." Mick asked as he laid out a variety of forceps and a long hunting knife.

"Once you start cutting on me, and getting the silver out, I might be," Josef admitted.

Beth interrupted, "but you're okay being around me right now, aren't you?" She stepped a little closer.

"I can control myself, for now," Josef replied and smiled at Beth. She was even more beautiful than the angel in his dreams. Maybe he was still dreaming. If every movement didn't hurt so much he'd have gone to her before now to find out.

A nod of approval from Mick and Beth knelt down next to the sofa and said, "good. Because I've missed you, Josef."

He inhaled her scent as she brushed her lips against his, and he knew at that moment he must have died and bribed his way past St. Peter after all. He was able to push the pain aside when he was with her, and he touched her cheek, felt the softness of her hair as he deepened the kiss. There probably wouldn't be a next time as far as he knew, and he took advantage of the chaste gesture that Beth had offered him. But to his surprise, she didn't back away, didn't seem flustered or embarrassed that she was kissing another man in front of her fiancé, she returned his passion with her own.

It never lasted long enough when Beth was this close to him, but it was beyond what he thought he'd ever have again. A moment later, Josef could feel her reluctance as she pulled away just as surely as she could feel how weak he was. The silver had to come out now, before the cleaner arrived. He could feel some of his wounds slowly healing on the outside, but the internal damage near the bullets was getting worse in spite of all the blood he'd had. Being a vampire definitely had a downside, as far as Josef was concerned, and that was the fact that modern human anesthesia had no effect on the undead. Mick was more like Nurse Ratched than Florence Nightingale.

Mick actually smiled at Beth as she kissed his cheek and returned to her place on the other side of the room, but Josef simply didn't have the energy to worry about the nuances of their relationship.

Too low for Beth to hear, Josef said, "Is there somewhere else Beth can wait? I don't want to hurt either of you when my body tries to heal the new wounds you're going to make without enough blood. I'm hungry enough now. Please."

Mick nodded and turned to Beth, who was still oblivious to the conversation. "Beth, can you go wait by the dock for the cleaner? She won't hurt you, don't worry."

"But she won't be here for another hour…." She looked back and forth between the two vampires and said, "oh. I get it. Yeah, I'll wait outside." She stepped over the headless corpse of the male vampire who had been her keeper for the three weeks she'd been Katherine's "guest", and she wasn't sorry to see him dead. He'd looked at her like he didn't want to Josef to show up for the trade. Closing the door to the small house behind her, she headed down the hill towards the docks and tried not to think about what Mick had to do to Josef to get the bullets out.

After a short nod and an indication where the first bullet was lodged, Josef put his hands back above his head and prepared for another round of torture, even if it was at the hands of his best friend who likely did want him to live. Maybe it was poetic justice. Maybe it was even appropriate this way, deserved, but it was all he could do not to rip the knife out of Mick's hand and stop him from digging for the bullets.

Beth ran faster once Josef started screaming. More than anything she wanted to go back into that house and make it better, to let him feel loved, comforted. Each time she thought Mick must be finished, and she couldn't hear Josef anymore, it would start again. The roar of the ocean once she reached the dock drowned out his screaming, but it didn't help the pain in her chest because she could still hear him in her head. Sitting down on narrow wooden planking, she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, her hands over her ears. It would have to be over soon.

Suddenly Beth found herself fully upright and with an unyielding hand over her mouth, and a surprisingly feminine voice whispered in her ear, "sssshhhh. My quarrel isn't with you, human, or your lover. Behave yourself and both of you will walk out of here. Try my patience and I'll decide that I am very hungry."

There was no point in trying to resist, since Katherine was obviously strong enough to just break her neck with one hand. Beth wished now that she hadn't decided to wait until the wedding, wait until they found Josef, to be turned. Kicking this vampire's ass would have been preferable to playing the victim again, but then she remembered who the real victim was, and what he meant to her.

Katherine dragged her up the stairs from the dock as Josef's screams stopped, and Beth thought her captor laughed quietly. Beth tried to kick, scrape her feet in some kind of unnatural way, anything to alert Mick that something was wrong… anything that could be considered accidental enough to prevent Katherine from snapping her fragile human neck like a dry twig. She trusted Mick to know when something was wrong… he'd saved her enough times before, why should tonight be any different? Except tonight _was_ different; he was busy trying to save his best friend by cutting holes in him with a hunting knife. Beth found herself wishing for Mick's stalker days.

They reached the top of the stairs and Katherine spoke more loudly than necessary given her audience. A flare for the dramatic was not an endearing trait under these circumstances.

"Mr. St. John, if you would be so kind as to deposit my husband outside of the door, I am certain your pretty little human would be grateful for her life. I realize I invited you into this marital disagreement early on, but really, you should know when to leave these things behind closed doors."

The door slammed open as she finished, and Mick was dragging Josef behind him by his neck. Beth didn't need to be a vampire to smell the blood covering him. There was no way she could hide how her heart rate sped up at the sight, and she desperately hoped that Katherine's attention was elsewhere. Mick dropped Josef's limp body on a patch of green grass and stepped aside, his eyes never leaving Beth's, the intensity of his gaze making it clear to her that she wasn't to look away from him. This wasn't going to be as easy as Katherine had thought.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am. I believe you'll find him mostly dead, thanks to your little companion. I haven't been able to heal him, as I am sure you intended, so there's nothing left for me to do anyway. He's yours. Now give me back what's mine and we'll be on our way."

Mick sounded unusually apologetic for the circumstances, which surprisingly made Beth feel much better. There was a plan. She wasn't sure what it was, but there was a plan. Beth could feel Katherine smile even though she couldn't see her face, and it quickly became clear that Josef hadn't married her for her intelligence. She was remarkably naïve for a vampire.

"I'll release her once you are in your boat. Take your human and go. Treat her well, Mr. St. John, not as my husband has treated me." Katherine said, her eyes flitting back and forth quickly between Josef and Mick, but her voice seemed almost sad.

"I will. We'll be on our way and leave you and Josef to a… work out your differences," Mick said before running down the stairs to the boat and waiting, his arms outstretched as if to show them empty of weapons and proclaim his benevolence.

Katherine let Beth go and pushed her towards the stairs leading to the dock. "Run," was all she said before turning back to consider her bloodied husband laying there on the grass, waiting for her to finish him. A long dagger slid out of her belt and comfortably into her hand as she approached his unmoving form.

Josef waited. The timing was critical and he was hardly in fighting form. Not three minutes ago Mick had pulled the last bullet out of his chest, and the wounds hadn't even fully closed. He waited because there was nothing else he could do. He could feel Katherine coming closer, the tip of her boot colliding with his already battered ribs and he couldn't hold back the groan.

"There is a special plane of hell reserved for those who violate their wedding vows, Liam. Give the Devil my regards." She raised the dagger up high, her aim unmistakably on his neck, and Josef finally saw his opening. He reached up and grabbed her shirt, popping the pin of the incendiary grenade and shoving it down the front of her clothing before rolling off to the side and desperately hoping he wasn't going to be caught in the chemical reaction. The edge of her dagger sliced a deep gash in his neck as he separated from her.

The short delay on the grenade wasn't enough time for Katherine to both figure out what had happened and safely remove it before her chest was engulfed white hot flame, and she crumpled to the ground as sparks flew in every direction. Within seconds it was over, and there was nothing but ash left of the woman Josef had married in his human youth.

"Consider that a divorce," Josef said as he collapsed back down onto the grass.

Mick reached the top of the stairs before Beth, and he tried to smile at them closing his eyes and letting his exhaustion claim him again. He closed his eyes and attempted to push down his hunger while they all waited for the cleaner. Fresh blood would be a welcome thing indeed since his wounds were not healing, and his neck was still bleeding.

Beth walked towards Josef but Mick blocked her path. "You need to stay away from him, Beth. He's hungry and he might not be able to control himself."

She rested her head against his chest for a moment before kissing him lightly on the cheek. "I know, and he needs blood. We both love him, Mick, and I can give him what he needs. If he takes too much, just turn me. I can handle it not being the romantic affair you'd like it to be, but Josef needs blood, and I'm the only human here. It could be a lot longer than an hour before the Cleaner gets here… she said two hours was the minimum."

Mick couldn't argue with her logic. They'd discussed her turning many times, and he knew she was set on the idea of giving up her mortality as soon as they found Josef anyway, but he had hoped to have it happen under more controlled circumstances in L.A., not on some windswept rock in the middle of the Atlantic. He held her hand and walked her to where Josef lay, trying to stay between them in case his friend lost control before they were ready.

He may be in bad shape, but Josef's hearing hadn't been damaged. "You don't have to do this, Beth. I can wait," he whispered. "Mick, please."

"Brother, I learned long ago it isn't wise to argue with her when she has her mind set on something. That is the secret to a long a happy relationship. Just be careful with her, okay?" Mick pulled Beth's sleeve up to expose her wrist, placing a kiss over the veins there. There was something strangely intimate about offering her blood to another man, especially one that he knew she loved, but it wasn't awkward. It felt right.

Kneeling beside Josef's head, Beth offered him her wrist. "Drink Josef, please. You need to heal. I know you'll stop in time."

He took her hand in his, feeling the blood flowing beneath her skin, his hunger stirring. He hated feeding from her like this, when he wasn't sure of his control, but was awed by her trust. "I love you, Beth, no matter what happens," and before she could say anything in response, he pulled her wrist to his mouth and bit down. Her soft gasp and the feel of her warm blood sliding down his throat filled him with a bliss he never thought he'd feel again. The taste of her love, her willingness, was more than he had a right to expect and even better than he remembered it. Being loved by Beth really was Heaven.


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story. And for all of you who have been waiting for the more intimate moments between our heroes, you won't have much longer to wait. - Laurelin

--

The Cleaner was all too happy to personally escort Josef, Mick, and Beth to their waiting aircraft and see them safely inside. Getting the three off them out of her country was top on her list of priorities. During the ride to the airport, Josef had agreed that they'd caused enough trouble and would be on their way forthwith. As they exited the limo on the tarmac, there were muttered words between the vinyl-clad redhead and Mick, but Beth was too sleepy to care what they were saying. She just wanted to finish her transfusion and IV fluids, have a post-donation snack, and take a really long nap. Honestly, she doubted she needed the transfusion, but Josef and Mick had insisted, the Cleaner had reluctantly agreed, and it didn't seem worth the effort to argue with three vampires when it came to matters of blood.

Having Josef for a friend definitely had its benefits, Beth decided when she laid down on the soft bed in the aft bedroom of the plane. She wasn't sure if she would ever be able to fly commercial again. Mick tucked her in with a kiss on her forehead and another over the pulse in her neck, making her wish she had more energy at the moment. She'd been anemic on more than one occasion since going to bed with her vampires, and she had been happy to help Josef's body heal. She just wished it had taken the hurt from his eyes as well. Josef's guilt was understandable, if Josef was some other vampire entirely. He had taken more than he would have in a normal feeding, but her life was not in danger, and he let go the third time Mick yelled at him to stop. Not bad for a very hungry vamp, and the Josef she remembered should have just made a sarcastic comment and thanked her for the feast. Some part of her wished he had taken too much and she could be done being fussed over every time one of them sank fang into her, but the way she imagined her turning had nothing to do with a windswept rock and a smoldering pile of vampire ash. It had everything to do with candlelight and the two men she loved.

As she closed her eyes, she heard Mick nicely talk Josef into taking the first shift in the freezer, and she knew somehow that they were all going to be okay. The thought of having Josef back in their lives make her smile as she drifted off to sleep, unwilling to fight the pull any longer. She dreamt of the first time Josef had bitten her, how she'd responded to him so easily, and how that simple act gave her the courage and desire to ask both men to introduce her to the pleasures of sex with vampires. The only regret she harbored was that she didn't realize what was happening to Josef before he got it in his head that he had to leave.

A cool hand on her cheek and the sound of her name woke her. "Beth?" Josef's quiet voice was barely audible over the hum of the engines. "You were dreaming."

It took her a moment to realize she was awake and Josef was really there, sitting on the edge of the bed with her. "Oh, sorry. I guess I was talking in my sleep again. I was dreaming about you, actually."

He looked away from her eyes and found a quick distraction. "Your IV is finished. Hold still and I'll take it out." Without waiting for her answer, he took her hand gently and peeled the tape back, using just enough of his power so she wouldn't feel any pain.

Josef smelled like soap and shaving cream and there were still tiny beads of water in his hair from the shower. Yet another private jet convenience she never wanted to miss again. After he pulled the IV out and covered the site with a bandage, he carefully avoided her eyes, as if somehow being this close to her made him uncomfortable. The IV supplies were being thrown into the trash as he said, "do you want something to eat? I can have the crew…"

"Josef, please stay," Beth said quietly, feeling the emotional distance that Josef was deliberately creating materialize between them. "Stay with me. I missed you." Taking his hand she gently pulled him back towards her and the bed. It would be impossible to force him, well, at least while she was still human, but she hoped he would want to come to her without arm wrestling him for the privilege.

Somewhat reluctantly Josef sat down on the edge of the bed, as if he was being cautious about touching her, but he did his best to give a reassuring smile. It was less that successful.

"Please don't leave me again," Beth implored in a hoarse whisper. "Stay with me, and Mick. He can share, Josef, and he loves you like a brother."

Josef stared intently at the delicate gold and emerald ring on Beth's right hand, rubbing his fingers lightly over it, almost meditatively. "I can't say I feel mere brotherly affection for you, though." His eyes finally met hers and she became aware that most of what she had known as Josef's personality before had been a façade, and he wasn't acting anymore. There simply was no longer a point in trying to cover up what he was feeling, what was eating him up inside. Looking into his eyes was like looking at a huge gaping wound.

Beth sat up and wrapped her arms around him, as tightly as she could without hurting herself, and after a moment kissed his neck where there would have been a pulse had he been human. "Good, because I wasn't feeling quite so sister-like about you either." She felt his small shiver, how her touch affected him so quickly, but he pulled away right after.

"I, ah… should go. I have a lot of phone calls to make," he tried separate his hand from hers but she held on tightly enough that Josef was going to have to hurt her to remove the hand. He sighed and gave up, going back to rubbing the ring he'd given her. "Beth," he said as he visibly tried to put himself back together, "you are marrying my best friend. I care about both of you enough that I will not ruin this for you. Marriages are for two people, not three, as much as I desperately want to bribe all of Congress to make polyandry legal." His attempt at covering with humor only made Beth want to hold him more.

"I'm not asking you to marry me, Josef. I'm asking you to turn me. Not tonight, not here, but in a month or two, when we are all ready." Beth's fingers brushed away the tear at the corner of Josef's eye. It took him a moment to understand what she was really saying, and what it meant.

"But Mick was going to be your sire. He told me that he was going to turn you after you were married." The silver was clearly having some nasty side effects he'd never experienced before.

"Did he tell you that, really? I would have thought he'd said that I was waiting until after the wedding to be turned, not that he was going to do it personally. I was fine with the idea of him turning me last night in case you needed all of my blood, but it's you I want to be my sire. We were waiting on the wedding until we found you, and therefore the turning."

"But you are marrying Mick. To… to spend your considerable lifespan with him, not me," he said, as if her request was too good to be true and he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Beth smiled. "Yes, I am going to marry Mick. But that doesn't mean that I don't love you too. I do love you, Josef. Mick explained to me that the bond between a sire and their child is just as strong, if not stronger than any human ceremony. It's why he couldn't leave Coraline for so long; she holds some power over him through their bond. While we wouldn't exactly be the model of the American family, I'm thinking that vampires don't have much need for current society norms anyway. Am I right? I don't see you with the picket fence, a dog, and a Susie Homemaker wife who fixes you freshies for dinner. Why shouldn't we be able to have our cake and eat it too?"

Josef sat still with a blank look on his face for another minute, as if thinking, or as Beth thought, maybe too stunned to think.

"You love me?" he finally asked, incredulous.

"Of course I do, Josef. Now I realize that your last marriage might not have uh… ended well, but perhaps this arrangement will be more to your liking."

"But you've seen Sara, what can happen if…" Why he was making excuses he wasn't sure.

"Sara was an unfortunate accident, that won't happen with me, okay? And I promise to do my best to let you go when Sara wakes up. I would _never_ come between you two, ever." Beth kissed his cheek lightly.

"Wait, you want me to turn you?" He looked at his ring on her finger before looking up again.

Beth moved so that she was more directly in front of Josef, so there was nowhere to look but her face. "Josef? I always pictured you as a little bit smarter than this. Haven't you been paying attention to what I've said? I love you, Josef, and I want you to turn me, and share me with Mick. I'm certain I'll be able to keep up with both of you in the bedroom once I'm a vampire, and…"

Josef didn't let her finish. His hands caressed her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as his mouth found hers, tentatively, softly. He'd heard all he needed to hear, and the relief was overwhelming. This beautiful, sexy, determined, giving woman wanted him, was in love with him, and there was no way he was going to let her go. Honestly, he admitted to himself that he'd do anything to have even one more night with her, much less eternity. He could share her with Mick if that's what she wanted, and Mick consented.

The thought of Mick snapped him back to reality and he released Beth's lips reluctantly. "Why would Mick be okay with all of this when he could just keep you all to himself?"

"Because every time I look at her, Josef," Mick's voice behind him startled Josef, "I can't understand why every man who sees her doesn't love her as much as I do. You're the one man who does. Why should I deny you happiness, and Beth the happiness you give her? It will work out. I'll marry her, you sire her, and we'll live happily ever after until she gets tired of us. We can even move to San Francisco if anyone we know in L.A. has a problem with our alternative lifestyle." Mick winked at them both, and Josef smiled for the first time in two years.


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed this story. Here's the beginning of the good stuff, now that the angst is out of the way. -Laurelin

--

The drive from the airport to his house was taking much longer than he remembered it, Josef thought impatiently. He was having trouble waiting until they got home to rip Beth's clothes off and make her scream in pleasure for him, and he considered just starting in the car in front of Mick. Two years without sex was difficult enough, but then being so close to the woman he loved, knowing she wanted him too, was almost more than he could stand. As if sensing his impatience, Mick winked at Josef when they arrived and the chauffer held the door open for the three of them. Josef looked inquisitively at Mick when he didn't get out of the car, wondering why his friend wasn't coming in for the big reunion with his employees.

"I have some errands to run," Mick said, a large grin on his face, "you two go have fun and get, ah, reacquainted." Beth kissed him quickly then turned to Josef and offered him her arm for the walk to the house. If it weren't for the required pleasantries of the staff and freshies welcoming him home, he'd have picked her up and run for the bedroom so fast it would have made her head spin. Every second of delay was too long, and he knew Beth felt the same way, as she kept glancing towards the stairs.

Finally, when the servants had been all been greeted and sent about their tasks, and two freshies were sent up to his office, he picked Beth up and took her to his bedroom. Her small shriek of surprise only made him harder and more ready to feel her warm skin against his body. As set her down on the floor of the bedroom, next to same bed where they had first discovered the pleasures of each other's bodies, he kissed her deeply, letting her know how much he had missed her. But as suddenly as the kiss began, Josef backed away and clenched his fists to keep from pushing her back down onto the bed and taking her right then.

"Beth, I'm going to go feed, quickly, so I won't take too much blood from you. I'll be back soon, I promise."

She grabbed his arm before he could step away. "Wait, please. Ask them to come in, Josef. I want to watch you," Beth said without the barest trace of embarrassment. In fact, the scent of her arousal became stronger with his mention of feeding.

"Really?" he asked with his characteristic smile. "I had no idea you were such a voyeur, my love," he said, crossing the room quickly and opening the connecting door to his office. Beth propped herself up with her back to the headboard of the bed, eager to watch him feeding his one of his two most primal desires, then have him come to her to satisfy the other.

Samantha and Antoinette snuggled up to Josef as if anticipating their pleasure, then they both greeted Beth with a genuine smile and offered a wrist to the vampire.

Josef watched the exchange of looks between Beth and his freshies with amusement in his eyes. "What _have_ you been doing while I've been away, Beth?"

The three girls giggled as only girls can do. "I've been busy learning all about the ways of vampires, Josef," Beth said seductively. "I'm sure I'll be full of surprises."

Josef's eyes faded to their vampire light blue as he licked across Antoinette's wrist, then bit through her sensitive flesh, closing his eyes and drinking deeply from the rich blood. He had missed fresh, warm human blood in Alaska, and especially the blood from willing and beautiful young women. Tonight he would have blood from three of them; a true feast indeed for a man starved of such comforts.

When Antoinette's knees buckled, he supported her with an arm around her waist, taking a few more mouthfuls before carrying her back into his office, licking the last of her blood from his lips as he returned. Beth was sitting on the corner of the bed next to Samantha, close enough that they were slightly touching. Both seemed very comfortable with the arrangement, and Samantha offered him the wrist closest to Beth.

He's never had a human lover who wanted to watch him feed more than once, and never so up close and personal. For vampires, sharing a meal was a regular occurrence in bed, but to have Beth so enamored with the idea was better than any other foreplay. He was thrilled at her boldness, the look of anticipation in her eyes that exceeded even Samantha's. Beth was going to make a delightful fledgling. _My fledgling_, he thought as he bit down into the freshie's waiting vein, his blue eyes locked on Beth's. Josef made certain that she saw his fangs sink into the skin, the first drop of blood welling up, before he closed his mouth around the wound and pulled more from it. The sighs from Beth and Samantha were simultaneous, and the blood went straight to his groin.

As he licked the wound his eyes never left Beth's. Her skin was flushed, her pupils dilated, and when she licked her lips, he had to fight the urge to offer her Samantha's wrist. Finally, when she didn't look away, he did offer her the blood, a taste as he pressed his lips to hers, enjoying the eagerness in her. She was not put off by it, and kissed him deeply.

Breaking the kiss for only a heartbeat, Samantha was deposited back in his office under the care of one of his most experienced employees, and he was back on the bed with Beth, pushing her down into the soft satin comforter, hungry for the feel of her body beneath his.

As her fingers fumbled with the buttons to his shirt, Beth felt like she was drowning in the feel of Josef's urgency, his desire, and she didn't want it to end. This was not going to be the careful, slow sex of their first time together. With the coppery taste of blood still lingering in both of their mouths, Beth ripped open Josef's shirt, sending the small buttons scattering as he moaned. Not a second later, he had ripped the front from her thin blouse and her bra and he was exploring the softness of her breasts with his mouth and hands. The urgency of his touch and the feel of the fabric ripping in his hands made Beth cry out his name, not in pain, but in pleasure. She didn't need this to be gentle, she wanted him inside of her as soon as possible, pounding her hard until she came.

His teeth closed around her nipple, teasing it to a hard peak as he pinned her wrists above her head. Instead of fear, she smelled only of desire, telling him how much she wanted him, trusted him. He gave the other nipple the same attention as she arched up into him, rubbing herself against the hardness beneath his constraining pants, and up towards his mouth, which sucked and pulled on each nipple until they were hard and aching. Her moans were delightful.

While his eyes bled back to blue, his sharp fangs descended as he released her arms and shed the remainder of his clothing so fast she could hardly see him move. He then proceeded to push up her skirt, so pleased to see she was not wearing underwear that a low growl escaped his throat. The scent of her, the sight of her wetness was too much and he lowered his head for a taste. She was even sweeter than he remembered, and he worked his mouth over her slick lips, pulling on her clit, lightly nipping at the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs as he slid two fingers inside of her heat.

The orgasm overtook her quickly, and she cried out for him, clutching at his head, pulling him closer so he wouldn't stop. He held her there at her peak as long as he could, then buried himself inside of her a single stroke. The power of his thrusts was almost more than she could stand, and she knew he was still holding back. His eyes had not returned to their human color, and Josef looked at her with the full weight of his vampire gaze, a look of pure ecstasy on his face.

Beth tried to sit up enough to kiss him, but he snarled and pinned her hands next to her head, kissing her with a ferocious intensity. One of Josef's fangs nicked the inside of her lip and he sucked on it hungrily, never ceasing the thrusting of his hips. The blood was as important as the joining of their bodies, and Beth cried out to him as she got closer to the brink of another orgasm.

"Bite me, Josef, please." She wanted to hold his head against her neck as he bit her, but he kept her hands firmly against the mattress, with nothing gentle about the way he took her. The urgency, the need that Beth felt in him was mirrored by her own, she'd missed him for too long. He didn't make her wait long, striking quickly at her offered neck and finding his release at the same moment she did.

He lay on top of her, licking the wound in her neck, and suddenly realizing that she was still human… and that he should have been more careful. Rolling off to the side he listened to her strong and steady heartbeat, and looked her over quickly.

"Beth, are you okay? I wasn't as careful as I should have been and…"

Her smile told him all he needed to know. "I'm fine, Josef. Stop worrying." She turned over and tugged his lower lip with her teeth. "Rough is good sometimes, and I'll be pleasantly sore for a little while, which will only make me want you again. I'm sure when I'm a vampire there will be a whole new world of sensation waiting for me with you, but I think for now I'll be too exhausted to get out of bed for at least the next few hours. Whatever will you do with me?" She laid back dramatically with one arm on her forehead.

Kissing her lightly on the lips and then on each of the two small bite marks, he said, "I'm sure I can think of several hundred things I can do to you, and most will keep you right here in bed for longer than just a few hours."

"Mmmmm, I certainly hope so," she said as she turned and rested her head against his chest, closing her eyes. Getting used to not hearing a heartbeat when she did this had taken surprisingly little time, and now the silence was comforting. Josef wrapped his arms around her and let her sleep for a while, content to just hold her in the first of many nights with his Beth.


	11. Chapter 11

Thanks to droogalix for the constant encouragement. -Laurelin

--

After an hour of watching Beth sleep, Josef was getting impatient for her to awaken. He'd been without her for too long, he thought, as he eased her head down onto the soft pillow beside him. He could still taste her on his lips, but it wasn't enough. Soft kisses caressed the unbitten side of her neck as his fingertips trailed down the outside of her breast. Beth stretched and gave a contented sign underneath him, running her fingers through his hair lightly as he continued.

Without a word being spoken, she snuggled up to his chest and pressed her lips against his neck, then bit the skin there, hard enough to leave a mark if he were human, but as a vampire, it made him moan.

"You have no idea what that does to me, Beth. When you're my vampire you'll find out," he said slowly, his words full of desire.

"I certainly hope so," she replied as she bit him again.

Beth didn't mind the idea of being his at all, and continued to slowly kiss, lick, and bite her way down to his chest and finally to his nipples, lavishing her attention on them until they were as hard as hers had been an hour ago. Feeling Josef react to her touch encouraged her to continue lower, covering every bit of skin down his ribcage and abdomen, where the taut muscles underneath the skin were awaiting her touch. She was the subject of every fantasy he'd had in the last two years, and the certainty that she was going to make one of those come true made him rock hard.

The firm pressure of her palm against his right shoulder was all the convincing he needed to roll onto his back and let her have her way with him. She smiled up at him with a wicked grin on her face as she lowered her head to taste the tip of his cock. Licking up and down its length, she teased him, feeling how difficult it was for him to keep from thrusting his hips up, watching his hands grasp fistfuls of the satin bedsheets to keep from holding her head where he wanted it most. She enjoyed making him wait just a little bit, it made him cry out her name when she finally did let the length of him slide into her mouth and down her throat. It took her a few tries to accommodate his size.

The sound of ripping sheets filled her ears as Beth began to move her head up and down on his shaft, relishing the idea that she could make him lose control like that.

"Beth, stop, please. Just for a second. Ahhh…" she took him deep once more before stopping. She knew what he was trying to do, and because she was still human she'd let him take a moment to regain his control. But when she was a vampire and no longer feared for her safety, she had no plans of letting up.

Josef relaxed and touched her face, pulling a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear. His smile told her he was back in control, but as he tried to sit up and move towards her she grabbed his wrists and held them down on the ruined sheets.

"You do know I can get away from you anytime I want, lover," he quipped. God, how she loved that self-satisfied grin on his face.

"But Josef," Beth said as she licked up and down his cock while still holding his arms, "you don't want to get away from me, do you?" She asked like she already knew the answer.

Josef rested his head back against the headboard and gave in. "Hell, no," was all he could say before she enveloped him again in her hot, wet mouth. The delicious friction of her mouth had him close to the edge of his orgasm in no time, and when Beth knew that he was close, she slid her body a little further up his side, letting her nipples caress his skin, and flipped one of her hands over. Instead of holding his arm down, it now lay upright in his palm, a fact that wasn't lost on the vampire in him.

He immediately laid claim to her wrist, half sitting up as his fangs elongated and he pierced the skin with them. The first drop of her warm blood triggered his orgasm, and he came hard, emptying himself into Beth's eager mouth as she swallowed every bit of his come and didn't miss a single stroke. When Josef was thoroughly spent, he collapsed back on the bed and checked one thing off his mental fantasy list, still amazed that he was here with her instead of rotting away in Alaska. Maybe he was still dreaming, but if so, he never wanted to wake up.

It was Beth's turn as watcher of the recently-exhausted. She propped herself up on one elbow and waited for him to recover, while she offered him the last few drops of blood from her wrist. He licked the small puncture wounds delicately, as if it were the last traces of the most delectable food he'd ever had, a look of pure pleasure on his face.

When the wounds had fully closed, and Josef was happy that she was not going to bleed to death on his account, he pulled Beth up and over his body, kissing her. Finally letting her come up for air, he pulled her hips down onto his, letting her feel how hard and ready he was for her again.

Beth laughed a little bit and said, "One of the best things about sex with vampires… no waiting." She looked like she was going to say more, but Josef thrust his hips up again, letting his shaft slide over her clit, and she was suddenly unable to think about anything else. As he sat up, he pulled her legs forward and around his waist, letting her weight rest on that most sensitive spot. He held her in place there, barely moving his hips while he watched her face.

"I would have thought you liked how strong we vampires are more than our stamina." Josef asked as he thrust his hips up again, hard, while holding her hips up against him. She closed her eyes and threw her head back.

A few seconds later she said, "yes," she said between sharp intakes of breath, "when you put it like that," and he answered her with several more thrusts, all directed at where her clit rubbed against his erection. His mouth closed over her left nipple, sucking hard, feeling it tighten between his lips. Every time he pulled back, stretching her breast slightly while never relinquishing his grasp on her nipple, he pulled her down onto him, and she gave a short cry of pleasure.

"Or is it the teeth, the bite that you want so much?" he said as he vamped out and lightly grazed both nipples with his fangs, so gently that he did not draw blood, but enough that he kept her wondering if it would. The rhythm of his hips and his grasp on her waist never wavered. She was getting closer, and Josef wanted nothing more than to watch her come under his touch, holding her warm body so close. He gently brushed her hair back from the side of her neck and kissed his earlier bite wounds, and inhaled her scent deeply. It was intoxicating.

Lightly nipping along the side of her neck, he realized she had never answered his question. "Beth, tell me, do you like it when I bite you? I could bite you anywhere I want, as often as I want, as many times as I want, and you'd be helpless to resist me."

But Beth was beyond comprehension from the maddening friction, desperately wanting to feel him inside of her. "Please, Josef…"

He knew what she wanted, but he wanted to hear her say it. Teasing her nipple with his teeth, taking as much as he could of her soft and yielding flesh into his mouth as he could, he held her there, just this side of pain, feeling her wetness leaking from her tight canal.

"Please what, Beth?" he said, letting go of her breast for a moment but increasing the pace and pressure of his thrusts, moving her hips down against him, never letting her take control but still giving her the contact she needed.

"Please be inside of me when I come, Josef," she looked at him pleadingly before closing her eyes again.

He smiled. The sound of her so desperate for him, for the release she could give him, was overpowering his control. Though he would never deny her anything she desired, he'd enjoyed how swiftly and completely she reacted to his touch, like they had been lovers for far longer than two short days, two years apart. He vowed never to be separated from her for that long ever again as he lifted her up and settled her down carefully on his cock, kissing and teasing the side of her neck with his teeth.

"Is that what you needed, my love?" he asked with his mouth close to her ear, his breath making her hair tickle the side of her neck. He rested his hand on the back of her head, waiting for the time he would hold her head still and press his teeth through the perfect skin on her neck, drinking his fill.

Letting her adjust to his size for only a moment, he resumed the exquisite pace and pressure of his earlier movements, but this time letting her feel every inch of him sliding in and out of her. A few more thrusts was all Beth needed, and she screamed her release above him.

Josef didn't let up, keeping her coming a second time right after the first. Four hundred years of experience helped him to hold himself back, as the feel of her walls spasming around him, the heat and wetness inside of her was bringing him closer and closer. The smell of her skin, of her blood so close to the surface, just below where his lips and tongue teased her neck, all threatened to push him over the edge. He could feel her heartbeat increasing again, the scent of her arousal so strong around them both.

Beth leaned down and kissed him deeply, savoring the coolness of his lips against hers as she said, "do it, Josef, bite me. Anywhere you want. Drink."

He didn't need to be told twice, especially not so close to his own orgasm. Carefully he let his power wash over her, let it heighten her pleasure as it did his own, and he bit down into her neck. The thick sweetness of her blood welled up into his mouth and he swallowed it down while he came, spilling himself inside her as she screamed for him. He could taste the orgasm in her blood, her love, and it made him feel complete in a way he'd never been before. He was home, he thought as they both collapsed into the silky sheets and he licked the bite until it stopped bleeding. Beth drifted off into a contented oblivion while he watched over her, for the first of many nights, he hoped.


	12. Chapter 12

Thanks to everyone who has made it to this point and especially to those that have taken the time to review. - Laurelin

3 hours later

"Josef? Wake up. We need to talk before Beth gets up." Mick whispered from the doorway to the bedroom, hoping to wake Josef up without disturbing Beth, but he got no response.

Mick tried again. "The southeast Asian stock markets are crashing." Strange, he thought, that always used to work before.

"The boat is sinking, Captain Joe! Mayday!" Mick pleaded in his most melodramatic, falsetto whisper. He waited for Josef to turn over and answer him, because the two of them needed to have a little talk before things between the three of them went any further. And he was really hoping to do that while Beth was still sleeping.

Before resorting to actually going over and shaking the vampire awake, he tried one more time. "Beth's going to have sex with one of your freshies and she wants you to watch."

Josef sat up and smiled at his friend, raising his eyebrows at the possibilities inherent in Mick's statement. "Well, we wouldn't want to miss that, now would we? Maybe someone should wake Beth up and inform her of the plan… or is that the secret you wanted to talk to me about?" The smile was the old Josef's, only somehow more relaxed… more… content.

Mick sighed but had to laugh. "How long have you been awake, Josef?"

"Oh, since about the time you started walking up the stairs. You know, spending the next few hundred years living under the same roof as you has all sorts of possibilities." Josef sat up and pulled on a robe from a nearby drawer, not the least bit embarrassed at his nudity, but thinking that he'd rather the staff not see him naked. He'd have to beat them off with a stick if that happened, he though happily to himself.

Mick knew he'd been the brunt of some inside joke, but he didn't care. It was good to have his best friend back, even if his best friend had left… three… no four new bites on his fiancé. He was glad they'd had a good time together, that Beth had been able to undo two years of self-destruction. Beth's heartbeat was slow and steady but strong, and her breathing even. She was even sleeping with the slight smile that she often had after a night of great sex.

They headed downstairs towards the kitchen, where a fresh pitcher of blood waited for the two vampires. Mick poured them each a tall glass while Josef gave instructions to the chef to prepare breakfast for Beth, and to not skimp on the protein or liquids. They headed to the living room and Josef sat down, looking quite relaxed on the leather sofa.

"It's good to have you back, Josef. Did you and Beth have fun last night?" Mick asked innocently.

"What, are you jealous already Mick? You smelled the room upstairs I'm sure." Josef was teasing him and Mick knew it. Of course he smelled the room. It smelled like sex and Beth, and her blood, three of the most intoxicating scents he could imagine, all swirled up into one.

"Of course I'm jealous, a little bit, but I'll get over it soon. But seriously, Josef, you're going to have save a little bit of her blood for me since we are sharing," Mick chided him lightheartedly.

Josef looked thoughtful for a moment, and finally said, "I suppose that could be arranged, given that you are going to be her husband and all."

Mick looked enthusiastic about that prospect. "How gentlemanly of you, Josef Kostan. I didn't think you had it in you."

After a short laugh, Josef replied, "I didn't think I did either. But somehow being with Beth changed a lot of things about me, Mick."

"Ditto."

Both men exchanged knowing glances and were pleased that there was no honest jealousy between them to contend with. Being a vampire simply caused one to live by different rules, and when there was forever to contend with, monogamy was very, very rare.

"Josef, we should work out the details of the wedding and turning. At this rate, with both of us around and her libido, she's going to need too many transfusions if we wait. I was thinking that we could hurry up the wedding and you could turn her, say, within the next week if that's okay with you?" Mick asked like he was running through a checklist in his head.

"You know about her asking me to be the one to turn her?" Josef had guessed that there weren't many secrets between Beth and Mick, but it was still such an odd concept that Mick would consent to such a thing.

"Of course I do. It was my idea," Mick said as he flashed his trademark smile at Josef. "We wanted you to stay, and not feel like a 'third wheel', because you aren't. If you turn her, there will always be a bond between you, one that is separate from the one I have with her, but somewhat equal. You'll always have a claim on her, which I trust you not to abuse, as does Beth."

"That's very generous, Mick, really." Josef paused, looking a little bit uncomfortable for a second before continuing. "Once I turn her, Mick, there's no going back. You can't change your mind. I tried hard to stay out of your relationship with her, Mick, I really did. I owed you that, and I wanted Beth to be happy more than anything, which I thought would be best done by stepping out of the way. But she seems happy with this relationship," he pointed at himself and Mick in turn, "but I have to ask you, brother, is she doing this out of some sort of misguided guilt? Or is this is a passing infatuation, one that she will become… unhappy with in a few years?"

Mick leaned back on the couch and stretched out, setting his empty glass on the table. "I'm hardly good at predicting the future, but I think as long as we continue to do what she tells us to do, there won't be any problem. Just trust me on this, Josef. Don't get in her way when there's something she wants badly. And she wants this badly. She's going to get it one way or another, and I know I'm only happy when she's happy."

"Maybe that's what I've been doing wrong all these years with women…" Josef joked.

"So I was thinking that the wedding should be soon, maybe in two or three days. That gives us enough time to get the details together, before she gets too anemic, and you can turn her by the end of the week."

"That soon? Beth had initially said a month or two."

"Yeah, well, between the two of us sharing her bed, I think it needs to be sooner. She's already had to have several transfusions this year on my account, and at least one on yours, and it's hard enough trying to keep from making love to her more than once or twice a week, and believe me, Josef, she wants it a lot more often than that. Now that you're back, and still getting to know each other again, I think the blood loss is going to be a major issue. But after you turn her…. not so much."

"Point taken. I can't wait for another week or two to go by before being with her again, Mick. Not having sex for two years was about the longest drought I've ever had, and I think you can appreciate that it didn't agree with me." Josef sighed and closed his eyes, imagining again what it would be like to feel Beth's fangs pierce his skin, for her to drink from him as his blood made her strong. "Yeah, I agree."

"Good," Mick nodded. "So, um… I've never had this kind of domestic arrangement. How does it work? Do we make a schedule? Do we draw straws for her every night? Throw darts maybe?"

Josef looked thoughtful. "Honestly, Mick, I've had my share of sex with more than two people at a time, but I've never had anything approaching long term with it. So I guess for now, let's just see how things go… you're welcome to join us whenever you want to, as long as it's okay with Beth of course, and hopefully I can join in whenever the mood strikes me, which is oh… every fourteen seconds or so. You can have her for the wedding night, since I know you're old-fashioned about that, then once she's a vampire we'll let her set us up on a schedule. Goodness knows I wouldn't want to get on her bad side. She knows where I dump the bodies."

They both smiled like they used to, comfortable in each other's friendship. It was like Josef had never left, in some ways. Finishing his glass of blood, Josef's pressed a button on the underside of the table and young woman appeared with the pitcher and gave them a refill. As she left, Josef asked Mick where they'd planned on having the wedding.

"Beth wants to go to Vegas and get married there. She doesn't have any family left, and neither do either of us, obviously," Mick said, looking amused with himself.

Nodding his approval, Josef said, "Good. I'll arrange for you two to have the penthouse at the Venetian for a few days, or maybe Julius will let you stay in his private suite at the Caesar's, then we'll come back here." Mick couldn't help but roll his eyes as Josef continued, "I want to turn her in more familiar circumstances, with freshies she knows, and excellent security. She shouldn't be around humans except to feed for the first few weeks, and Vegas has just a few too many of those. Speaking of which, are you two going to do the drive-through wedding or do something a little more formal?"

"Not the drive-through, as amusing as that sounds, but I think we'll just have a justice of the peace. I'm sure we can get one of those somewhere in Vegas." Mick said. "By the way, Josef, I was hoping that you would be my best man. After all, I wouldn't tolerate anyone less than my best man sleeping with my wife for centuries at a time."

"I'd be honored." Josef looked thoughtful, and serious in the ensuing silence.

"You okay, Josef?" Mick asked, hoping that Beth's repair of his psyche was still holding.

"Mick. There isn't a good way to say this. But thank you. Thank you for coming after me in Ireland. Thank you for letting me be a part of Beth's life, and yours. You didn't have to do all of that, you know. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had just left me Katherine. I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd asked me not to see Beth. But I wanted you to know that I'm grateful to still be as alive, well, as alive as I was before, and more importantly, I'm grateful to you for being willing to allow me to be with the woman that is, by all rights, yours exclusively."

"You're welcome, brother," Mick said, sincerely.

Josef stood and looked towards the large staircase that led up to his bedroom. "Beth better have a long-sleeved, high necked wedding gown. Let's go see if she wants company in the shower," he said with an evil grin on his face before dashing up the stairs at vampire speed, Mick only a heartbeat behind him.


End file.
